by Tj Dixon
“What’s wrong, Nairon?” I ask, seeing her face suddenly go bone white with an expression of pure terror.
“Something unnatural, really close to us.” Nairon whispers fearfully as her eyes flick in every direction.
“I don’t sense anything.” I say, now confused and concerned. I stop running and close my eyes to increase my senses, but I am instantly thrown against the wall. I drop Nairon in shock and opening my eyes I still can’t see anything.
(Nairon)
I hit the ground rather inelegantly, bum first. Wearing a thong and given the ground is solid stone that is rather painful. I can’t see the enemy but I can sense it. It is demonic and more or less the same shape as a person. I blast it with ice as it plunges its hands towards Grunti. I hit but it shrugs off the attack and turns its attention on me. Sitting on the floor isn’t great when fighting a demon, but there is no time to move.
I spray acid at the demon and it takes a step backwards before moving towards me again. Then all of a sudden it has been cut in half by a shiny string. Grunti is holding the ends of the string as it sparkles in the dark. Not all demons would die after being cut in half, but this one seems to be dead. I can no longer feel its power and the top half of a silver body is lying on the floor in a pool of silver blood. The bottom half seems to have dissolved into silver goo and is mixing with the pool of blood.
(Peter)
This is my third time kissing Elucia and again my heart races. It’s odd, because I never felt this way taking power from anyone else. Even when I took power from Rin the first time I wasn’t really nervous like this. I feel Elucia pulling away and realise I have taken enough power.
“Getting distracted are we?” Lucy chuckles at me.
“No!” I deny a little too forcefully, which just makes Lucy laugh even harder. Then she stops laughing and looks me in the eye.
“We have a battle to win, so please don’t get distracted now.” Lucy tells me seriously.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to get distracted. So how can we help the dwarves?”
“With the other dome frozen we shouldn’t need to worry about any enemies breaking through here or sneaking through the abandoned dome. I can sense a tunnel to another dome from here. There seem to be civilians pouring through it. If we want to help we should probably go down that tunnel. Or we could follow the civilians and head to safety.” Lucy tells me. The dwarves who fled from our dome have already moved on from here and many have now left this dome as well.
“The rest of you head to safety. I’m going to go help.” I say decisively.
“No. I’m going with you.” Lucy tells me firmly.
Dairon is clearly in no state to help. His song took all his energy physically as well as magically. He could get his magical power back from Elucia, but without his physical energy his reactions would be too slow to fight. Elucia is powerful, but not ready for a battle like this. It would mean killing people, and not just one or two. Kai could probably help, but I’d rather keep her with Elucia and Dairon to ensure they are ok. I had wanted to keep Lucy with them, both for her own sake and for theirs. I take one look at Lucy though and realise there is no talking her out of this.
“Fine, but everyone else head to safety.” I say with a sigh.
“I can fight too.” Kai tells me firmly.
“I know, but Elucia and Dairon need you to protect them.” I tell her.
“I can fight too.” Elucia protests, but she is trembling.
“It seems I’m the only one who can’t fight.” Dairon says wryly.
“I couldn’t have beaten those demons without your help though.” I remind him.
“Do you sense that?” Kai asks me urgently.
“Sense what?” I ask confused.
“The ground is trembling.” Kai tells me and I focus my senses. It is faint but I can just about sense that the air close to the ground is a little disturbed. My earth senses are simply not good enough to sense something so small.
“What could be causing it?” I ask, very worried now. Even something so small at a time like this could mean really big trouble.
“I’m not sure.” Kai says with a frown.
“I think I know.” Lucy tells us. “I sense a dimensional disturbance in that direction. Someone is almost certainly summoning something in whichever dome is over that way.”
“Kai, which dome is over there?” I ask but Kai shakes her head. Then I hear a female dwarven voice behind me. Turning I realise it comes from a dwarven girl in black stone armour and a golden helmet, with the visor up. She has piercing purple eyes and soft short blonde hair.
“Why do you need to know that? And why haven’t you evacuated to the next dome?” She asks. Behind her are a large group of dwarves in black stone armour. Lucy answers her sounding a bit annoyed.
“Someone’s summoning something there. I don’t know what, but either a powerful demon or elemental, or perhaps even opening a gate to move an army.” Lucy says and the dwarf stares at her in shock.
“I wish you were lying, but I can tell you’re not.” The dwarf says. “We’ll deal with it now you’ve told us, so you can evacuate with everyone else.”
“No. We’re helping. Well Peter and I are. The others can follow your advice.” Lucy answers. The dwarf looks unhappy.
“There’s no time to argue, but if you die don’t blame me. Everyone in my company, follow me!”
“Yes captain!” The other dwarves respond and follow right behind her.
“We’ll follow behind the last dwarves. You three get out of here now.” Lucy tells everyone firmly. Kai looks like she is about to argue but sighs and nods instead. She leads Elucia and Dairon away from us.
The dwarves have now all gone past so we follow them and have to hurry to avoid getting left behind. We soon reach a small tunnel like the one Grunti showed us and the dwarves are held up here because there is only room to walk single file. We’ll need to wait until the last dwarf has entered the tunnel before following.
As the last dwarf enters the tunnel we quickly follow. Lucy is sitting on my left shoulder now. The tunnel is dark but the dwarves’ armour is now glowing faintly so I can still just about see. If it gets too dark I’ll have to rely on my magical senses instead.
As we reach halfway I realise this must be the same dome that Grunti showed us, because there is water on the floor and as we continue it gets deeper just like in the tunnel Grunti led us through. As we emerge from the tunnel the dwarves are advancing in five rows of ten. They seem to have a clear idea of where the enemy is.
“Are they going the right way?” I ask Lucy.
“Yes.” Lucy answers, so I follow the dwarves. The water is about two feet deep, so even the shortest of the dwarves has her head just above the water, but only just. The ruined buildings and floating rubble are just as I remember them too.
“How far?” I ask.
“Not far and judging from the pattern of the mana, the ritual seems to be only about half done. We’ll make it in time.” Lucy tells me confidently.
“Any idea how many enemies we’re up against?” I ask.
“There can’t be many unless they’re very skilled at hiding their presence.”
“Well that’s good.”
“Whoever is there is probably very powerful, because this ritual requires a lot of power. If they’re unguarded they’ll have to stop the ritual, but there’s no telling how dangerous they may be. We could get lucky and the ritual may have used most of their power, but I doubt it. I suspect it will not be an easy fight even with this many dwarves.”
“Easy or not we’ll win it.” I tell both myself and Lucy. I’ve met enough powerful enemies now that it isn’t easy to believe. What if the enemy we’re about to fight is the Envoy? Well, then we’ll die, but hopefully we’re not up against the Envoy.
“High Smithy Lord Thor! What are you doing?!” The dwarf in a golden helmet calls out in shock. In front of the dwarves Thor is standing in a red circle of blood that was emitting a
dark red light. He is wearing nothing other than a white loin cloth. The light fades as he turns to face us.
“Annoying little grunts. All I was doing is summoning a Maou to make me king. You interrupted me though, so now you can die.” Thor booms. Then he sends a blast of silver shards at the dwarves, which knocks them off their feet but they shield so are otherwise unharmed. He then laughs. “You’re good, for grunts. Perhaps you’ll keep me entertained for a while.”
He seems focused entirely on the dwarves. I don’t think he has even noticed me and Lucy, who had fallen behind the dwarves. I am amazed how quickly they marched here given how short their legs are. Not that I was ever good at walking quickly or far. Perhaps it’s because I am too used to flying everywhere.
I didn’t want to risk using magic and alerting the enemy to our presence earlier, but now I lift Lucy and myself off the ground and above the water. I hide our presence of course. The dwarves in the front rank are able to shield Thor’s attacks and the other ranks are fighting back, but their attacks are fairly basic earth and fire attacks, which he easily shields. The front rank dwarves will most likely run out of power soon too, so speed is essential.
I fly us around a ruined building and approach Thor from behind and above. I am careful to fly above the other dwarves’ attacks and I focus on keeping my presence hidden more than I have ever done before. I am just above Thor and dive down at him. My hand lands on his neck and I blast him with lightning. I send almost every ounce of power I have in me. He sways for a moment before disappearing. It seems he was still able to port, so my attack failed. At least his ritual was disrupted.
“Can he try again?” I ask Lucy weakly. Thankfully the dwarves have stopped their attacks so we are safe for now. They reacted quickly. I doubt many of my club members could have stopped their own attacks so suddenly, but these are trained dwarven mages so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Yes, but a ritual like this requires a lot of preparation. It would take at least three days to prepare for another attempt and it requires a special location so he can’t just do it anywhere. To think that he had the nerve to attempt summoning a Maou. You’ve probably never even heard of a Maou, but they are the lords of hell. Each hell has exactly one Maou and it rules all the other demons and anything else that happens to reside in its hell.
“For a mortal to attempt to bind one to their will is like a child trying to hold back the sea or an ant attacking a dragon. The only good thing is that a Maou would be far too busy ruling its own hell to be interested in us. If it was summoned here though, there would be hell to pay. Literally…”
“Could a Fallen Angel bind a Maou?” I ask.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to find out either.” Lucy says with a shudder. “It seems the dwarves are going somewhere in a hurry.”
“We’d better go ahead of them and meet up with Elucia, Dairon and Kai.” I say and fly us over the dwarves and back to the tunnel. I don’t have much mana left so I’m going to need more from Elucia. She’ll be thrilled!
“You’ve been saying Elucia’s name first for a while now. Have you taken a liking to the girl?” Lucy chuckles.
“It’s not like that!” I protest but my voice cracks as I say the last word.
“You sure are growing up. You seem a bit taller too.” Lucy tells me. I race us through the tunnel and am glad it is so dark, because it hides my blush. I have my emotions under control by the time we exit the tunnel and we quickly catch up with Dairon and Elucia who are waiting for us near the tunnel to the next dome.
“I kind of used all my power again.” I tell Elucia and suppress another blush. Elucia sighs, takes a few steps forward and kisses me without another word. My power is soon back to the same level I’ve been taking from her, so I pull away from Elucia. “Thank you.”
“I hate that this is all I can do whilst everyone else is risking their lives.” Elucia tells me unhappily.
“It makes a huge difference though. Without your help I wouldn’t be able to fight and we’ve saved the dwarves a couple of times now. That’s all thanks to you.” I tell her. She blushes slightly.
“Thanks.” She tells me quietly. Then she looks at me seriously and asks. “So what do we do now?”
“I’m going back to help at the front lines wherever they may be. I want the rest of you to follow the dwarves.”
“You just told me you can fight because of my help. I’m going with you, wherever you go.” Elucia tells me boldly.
“It’s too dangerous.” I protest. Lucy sighs.
“You did just tell her you need her help. You should have thought of this before you said that. I doubt you’ll convince her to just wait here whilst you go off risking your life again.” Lucy tells me, sounding very tired all of a sudden.
“Are you ok, Lucy?” I ask.
“Just tired all of a sudden. This feels unnatural.” Lucy yawns and as she closes her eyes she starts to fall to the ground. I pick her up with my own flight magic before she can hit the ground.
“Can anyone sense any enchantments?” I ask suspiciously. Dairon nods.
“There’s an elven sleep enchantment in the air. It’s too diluted to affect us, but due to her size Lucy was hit badly by it. Whoever cast it probably intends to gradually strengthen the enchantment without anyone noticing.” Dairon tells us.
“Any idea where it is coming from?” I ask.
“The centre of the dome.” Dairon tells me.
“Can you tell how many elves are there?”
“No. I can’t sense any but there must be at least one.”
Chapter 13 (Multiple)
(Captain Glorin)
The last of the civilians have now escaped and somehow we have hung on this long. Now it is time to retreat to the inter dome tunnel, but that isn’t going to be easy. If we can get there we should be able to hold out for a while. There are potions there that we can use to restore our mana. Our reinforcements brought them and are waiting there for us. Our physical energy is a different matter, but as long as we have mana we will fight. The reinforcements are fresh too so it really does look hopeful if we can get there alive.
Thankfully the enemies are just humans so far and they haven’t used death magic yet. I feel Sergeant Lain’s shield cover me and I turn and dash towards her. As I reach her I take over shielding and she retreats further. It shouldn’t take long to reach the tunnel like this, but the question is whether our shields will hold now we are no longer able to attack the enemy and they are free to blast us with everything they have.
Sergeant Lain’s shield goes up again and I run after her. It takes about three minutes to get back to the tunnel, but we finally arrive there. The rest of the company is already there and have replenished their mana. I take a potion and swig it down in one go. My mana is almost back to full. I see Lain finish hers and we smile at each other in relief.
The humans are staying back for the moment so we may have a chance to rest, though I am sure it will be brief. My concern is that they are waiting for more powerful reinforcements. The worst case would be death mages.
“I really am tired.” Sergeant Lain yawns.
“Me too, but we have to fight as soon as they attack.” I yawn back. I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. I know that we have been fighting for a while, but it is odd to be quite this tired. Is it because we finally have a chance to stop and rest? No, it feels like more than that. Is this magic of some sort?
I search with my senses but can’t detect any enchantments that could have caused it. I am sure there is one though, because some of my mages are even starting to nod off now. In fact even the reinforcements are getting tired and they have only just got here. I don’t get the impression that they’ve fought anywhere else either. I open the mental link between companies.