by Tom Rogal
His thoughts of a perfect defense fell as he tripped over a dead Ettui soldier. Orznaii could smell blood as he looked to take advantage. Neeza moved away just in time as the blade crashed down on the dead Ettui below him. He swung so hard that it broke through each bone of his fallen comrade. The blade halting only when it hit the sand underneath. Neeza quickly tried to gain some distance, as Orznaii pursued him calmly and cool. Even with all the death and the Garchai, the Ettui leader was poised.
After getting a good ten feet in front of him, Neeza chanted, “Firamma krusantra!”
A long flame snaked its way toward the nearest enemy heat source. Orznaii quickly grabbed one of his troops behind him, using him as a shield. The spell hit the soldier with an electrifying jolt of fire as it killed the creature instantly, throwing the body with the rest of the dead.
He didn’t like this at all. This Ettui was too smart. How could he have known what that spell did? That was one of the spells that was unique to the sacred-bloods and usually only people on the council knew of them.
Orznaii spoke in the common tongue, “Don’t fight it. You will die here. Why try and stop the inevitable?”
“That is where you are wrong. I’m not going to die here. I have too much to live for. You have nothing!”
Orznaii retorted, “I remember a human prisoner saying before we killed him, that a man with nothing to lose is more dangerous than one that has everything. I am more dangerous than you can ever imagine!”
The Ettui charged after him, attacking aggressively. Neeza was struggling to block them all. Forget trying to cast a spell. That wasn’t going to happen. After a couple near misses, Orznaii hit his staff from below so hard that it flew about fifty feet behind the leader. Had Neeza not tripped again over the Ettui bodies, he would have tasted his blade for certain. As he stood up, he knew he had only one thing he had to do. Get his staff back.
Neeza began firing a barrage of weak spells toward Orznaii, hoping that some would hit, and he would be stunned. Yet, it looked like they all missed. How was this possible? What sort of trickery was he pulling? He was still about forty feet from his staff, but Orznaii’s resistance was not going to make it an easy forty feet.
Just then a Garchai mace nearly hit Neeza causing him to fall backwards. It was trying to attack the mage while it had four Ettui stabbing its back. It looked to be in some serious pain, and for good reason: It was dying. The Garchai fell limp right in between Orznaii and Neeza. This would be his chance. Instead of running the closer path to his staff, he ran in the other direction taking the long way. The injured ankle wasn’t going to help matters, but he was going to need to push through the pain somehow.
His decision was correct as Orznaii was trying to trick attack him. At last he finally outsmarted the damn creature. He sprinted as hard as he could. The staff was only a few feet away. Orznaii suddenly leapt in front of him. Damn! And he was so close! He looked and found a loose piece of Ettui armor just underneath his attacker. He telekinetically hit him in the face, giving him the space to get past him and retrieve his staff.
Both looked at each other before Orznaii commented, “Your staff will not help you. Nothing can. You are mine!”
The two once again began to exchange blows.
Lindaris and Joakon tried to maneuver through the carnage. The battle between the Garchai and the Ettui was growing outwards. The Ettui were fighting valiantly, but the Garchai’s sheer power would eventually win out, he believed. The bad news was that it also made it difficult to reach Neeza.
He had to give the Ettui credit; they had taken down at least twelve Garchai compared to the one hundred fifty they lost. It was the way they acted against them. They didn’t seem surprised or scared about them. If he didn’t know any better, he would have assumed these Ettui had trained for them.
A new wave of Garchai arrived from the door, looking for targets. Lindaris couldn’t be concerned about them at the moment. A group of Ettui began running their way.
Lindaris asked, “Is there ever an end to these guys?”
Joakon answered, “I don’t know and don’t want to find out. Let’s get Neeza and Haldirin and get out of here.”
Two of the Ettui stood to fight the mages. The rest scampered off to find the next Garchai target. Good. The least they had to worry about was fine by him. Lindaris finished his mark quickly using a fire spell. Joakon used a prismatic solution that seemed to disorient his target, and he began to attack another Ettui.
Lindaris commented, “Well, that wasn’t so bad. Thought that would be harder.”
A more heavily armored Garchai charged in and growled in their direction from the door.
“You need to learn to keep silent. Every time you comment on something it gets worse,” added Joakon.
Unlike the others, a crack in its helmet allowed them to see their enemy’s eye for the first time. It had a plain white eye, but one could make out the vague outline of where the pupil would have been.
Joakon observed, “These creatures are blind! They use the helmets to hide this!”
“Blind or not, these things know how to hunt regardless. That still makes them a problem in my book.”
The Garchai looked directly at them hearing their voices. It gave a roar before charging toward them.
Lindaris stepped up and yelled, “Firammiyan trigutra!”
A group of fireballs formed on the ground and rained on the Garchai in an arc. The extreme confidence he felt just moments before casting the spell hurtled down in flames as he saw his spell had no effect on it. That was one of the more potent spells he knew. Any spell that cast more than one of it (fire, water, lightning, etc.) always packed an extra punch, sort of like an after effect. For fire spells, he should have felt a burning sensation throughout his entire body and thus disabling him for precious minutes. On the Garchai, though, it seemed like the regular rules didn’t apply.
“Damn it! What does it take to kill these things?”
Joakon stepped in front of Lindaris holding two beakers of yellowish liquid. He had an idea what could kill them, and it wasn’t going to be magic that a mage would normally think of. It worked against the Garchipede, so why not the Garchai?
As the Valendritaii roared, Joakon tossed the first bottle of acid into the creature’s mouth. He heard it break as well as the burning sound it made. The Garchai was panicking, not very sure why it was in such extreme pain. Joakon ran a little further forward and tossed his second beaker. That one broke at its neck as its skin instantly began to eat away. Within seconds, between the acid burning through its throat from inside and out, it fell dead as blood seeped out from its wounds.
Lindaris patted him on the shoulder and said, “That was amazing! Remind me to not make fun of what you do again.”
“You mean even after the bridges you were still making fun of me?”
Lindaris commented, “What can I say? I’m hard to please.”
They gradually moved through the battlefield. They were getting closer to Neeza, who was once again engaging Orznaii in combat, but still had some distance to close. They only hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
He was going to need help, and fast! Haldirin was not the best at up close fighting. It wasn’t exactly the way mages were bred to fight. He felt he was decent enough at it, but he needed to be better. Neeza needed him, and he couldn’t reach him fast enough because he couldn’t beat his Ettui opponents with great speed. He was the closest to his leader, but he felt like the furthest. He did notice Lindaris and Joakon coming, but they would never make it in time.
There was another reason they had to hurry. He felt the ensuing arrival of another Garchai, one that was bigger and angrier. It allowed its emotions to be felt with anyone strong enough to feel it. He didn’t want to be anywhere near there when it arrived. Let the Ettui deal with him. Their journey was so close to being finished. By the gods, please help him!
Neeza could feel himself becoming weary. It was obvious that Orznaii was impressed with how we
ll he fought and for how long he did, but that wasn’t going to save him. It became clearly obvious to him as this fight went on: One of them wasn’t leaving the mountain alive. His opponent was like no other Ettui he had ever faced, and he had fought many in his lifetime. These battles ranged to light as they were in The Torgeetra Valley encampment or heavy as they were in the Battle of the Four Forks, which ended in disaster and the reason why he believed any more allied assaults on Barbata would never happen. Orznaii was in a class above the rest.
Orznaii become more aggressive in his attacks. Neeza sensed his aging legs were beginning to tire as his arms struggled to keep his staff up for much of the blows. He had to do something to change the fortunes of the fight, or else he would have failed this mission. He had one card that he hadn’t used yet, but he hadn’t done it since the Four Forks battle, and he had been much younger then. He didn’t have much of a choice as he saw it, regardless the potential dangers to his own health.
As soon as Neeza found the slightest of openings in the attack, he casted, “Hastergila Bumari!”
He was surrounded by a yellowish light which threw Orznaii on the defense. It was not going to be easy because this required the casting of many short spells in between attacks. It also required an excess use of life particles at the same time. He might not be able to walk by his own power after he was done. When he was younger and did this, it saved his life, but it also cost him seven months of recovery time. The mage body was just not equipped to use so much of the life particles all at one time like this.
The movement speed spell made his attacks more frequent as Orznaii was even having trouble keeping up.
Neeza chanted, “Hujiyamon Guirondom Firammii!”
Four white fireballs ejected from his hand. The two in the center went straight forward, while the other two arced to the side. All four hit Orznaii, as he grimaced.
Before that attack was even done, Neeza was already casting the next spell, “Earotha Vindarra!”
Two large stone spikes ejected from the ground when the tip of Neeza’s staff touched it. The spikes barely missed Orznaii as his quick reflexes were the only thing that saved him.
Neeza next cast after a quick two blows, “Littara Guivantta!”
A lightning bolt encased Orznaii as he was in too close of quarters to evade it.
“Iczera Nuikolone!”
A small group of icy needles began piercing the Ettui leader. All but one of the attacks had hit its mark so far, and he was halfway done. When he was done, if Orznaii wasn’t dead before, he’ll at least be weak enough to finish off.
“Aiga Hufriiga!”
A weak tornado surrounded Orznaii as he tried his hardest to escape it, but the winds forced him in.
“Watera Dicotta!”
Six water ‘bubbles’ formed and rushed at Orznaii with such force Neeza was certain he heard a rib break on the Ettui leader as they hit him in the mid-section.
“Drikontra Vuumartin!”
A dark cloud formed around Orznaii’s head. It followed him wherever he went, making his vision obscured. Time for Neeza to try and finish him as his haste spell was about to wear off. His staff jewel began to glow as he swung it up toward the Ettui leader’s head. His blow hit Orznaii at least twenty feet in the air and another twenty feet away.
That was it. Neeza held the staff in the ground just in case he couldn’t hold his body up. The adrenaline from the battle was probably delaying the effects, but for the moment felt good. And it was a good thing, too, because Orznaii survived. His breathing was heavy, and he looked like perhaps the injury to the ribs might have been the blow that did it. However, he knew he couldn’t leave him alive. Even if he was injured, the Ettui could mend him, and he could come back later to haunt them. Neeza slowly walked up to Orznaii and raised the pointy tip of his staff toward the Ettui leader’s neck.
In a quick motion, Orznaii grabbed his sword and drove it into Neeza’s chest.
Dyenarus, Haldirin, Joakon, and Lindaris collectively screamed, “No!”
The Ettui leader stood up, his display of pain a farce. Neeza’s spells may have hurt him, but this Ettui was bred to not mind whatever was hurt. He knew he was an experiment, a test to see whether the Ettui could be made to be stronger. He was the only one to survive the tests and now it was time to prove to his masters that he was the future of their race. Orznaii smiled as he pulled his sword out of Neeza, who fell to the ground hard.
The Ettui leader gloated, “I told you that you had no chance of beating me. I’m different. Now it is time to make Lord Ulcinar proud!”
Orznaii brought the sword up ready to strike at his neck as Neeza continued to stand on his knees, fresh blood pouring down his leg. It hurt so damn much. In all his years that he had seen combat, he had never been stabbed. Sadly, his first time might also be his last.
Just as Orznaii was about to swing his blade, a large fireball connected at the Ettui leader’s feet, causing him to be driven back nearly fifty yards. He felt pain rush through his arm as he hit a large boulder hard. He was taught to not let pain bother him, but he knew when he might have broken a bone. Although he was confident he could kill Neeza with one arm, the Garchai were another matter. Plus, as important as the Relic was, his survival was even more paramount to the greater mission; words spoken by Lord Ulcinar himself. He grabbed his sword with his good arm and ran through a small opening, away from the battle. It was not over between him and the mages, he was quite certain of that. Soon, Gyyerlith would see that this was only the beginning.
Haldirin and Joakon reached Neeza, grabbing him before he slumped to the ground. His breathing was quick and the bleeding was still not subduing.
“We have to get to a safe place so we can try and heal him. I don’t know if he stabbed an organ or not,” Haldirin observed.
Mages were complicated to kill. They could survive most wounds that would instantly kill a human. Not to say those wouldn’t kill one of their race, but it would have to go untreated for that to happen. The one sure fire way to kill a mage quickly was to hit one of its major organs. Heart and lungs were the most common, but damage to the liver and brain would also do the trick. The half-elves discovered through organ replacement, a mage could be saved if an organ was hit, but there were risks there, too. Neeza’s wound was much too close to the heart for him to tell if it was one that a simple healing spell combination could cure or if they needed more.
As they began to head toward the others, the next wave of Garchai entered, and the first one to enter caused even the mages to hesitate.
“By the gods!”
Zondiir gave a blood chilling yell as the Garchai began to charge into the room. The remaining Ettui, unaware their leader had abandoned them, continued to fight. They had to believe that the situation seemed hopeless. The Garchai leader was now here. Despite their ability to take out the whole first wave and most of the second, Zondiir was different than the rest. Not because of the armor he wore either.
Haldirin yelled, “Get moving!”
The other mages began to run toward the place where Dyenarus directed them to go for the Relic. As they headed down the ramp, there were a few Ettui, but most had heard what was going on and withdrew. The few that remained, Dyenarus and Gerran took care of. Biverin was struggling to keep his breath as he held his side. It felt quite moist to the touch. As he moved his hand, he saw fresh blood on it. Damn, this was not good. This was not good at all.
“Biverin! Move!”
Lindaris and the others began to come down the ramp carrying Neeza. Believe me, he thought. I want to. The pain on his side was getting greater and greater. It felt like he was on fire. Lindaris grabbed his arm and dragged him down the rest of the ramp when the first couple Garchai tried to pursue. The size of the ramp would delay them slightly, but not for long. They needed to find a safe place and fast.
As they moved through another large room, only slightly smaller, Condarin and Dyenarus found a niche that was compact enough that the Garchai woul
dn’t be able to fit in, but they were still at risk. The room wasn’t nearly as deep enough as they liked. One sword stab could take them out. But time wouldn’t wait. They had to see how serious Neeza’s injury was and if they could heal him.
Condarin was trying to figure out every possible combination of spells that would be needed to cure Neeza. Minor injuries usually only needed one; major ones like the one Neeza sustained needed a little more extra, which required planning. One spell cast in the wrong order could be disastrous. Closing one layer of the wound before it was healed properly would do nothing to save the recipient. White Magic was not as easy as everyone made it out to be.
Haldirin laid Neeza out on his back as he began to examine the wound. He was praying that it didn’t pierce his heart in anyway. They had nothing to transplant it with, which meant certain death. Even after looking at the location of the wound, he still couldn’t determine without a lengthy evaluation, which they had no time for.
Haldirin said, “I’m pretty sure it missed his heart, but the way his blade was crafted it might have severed a main blood line. If that’s the case, normal healing magic won’t help him.”
Condarin stepped up with a face full of focus and conviction, “Then we do it unconventionally. I think I can heal him, but I need all of you to help me. I don’t have the strength or power to do it alone.”
Haldirin finally understood what she meant to do. It was a very risky spell and one that she was correct in evaluating that she alone was not ready to perform. It was a spell that even the head of the White Magic School wasn’t proud to know of. It allowed the White Mage to borrow energy from other mages to make an extremely potent heal spell that was believed to heal almost all physical injuries. Doing it temporarily would disable their ability to cast magic because of the sheer power drained. And by including themselves in the spell with the Garchai around, she could jeopardize all of them as they would lose their magical advantage.