Bastial Explosion (The Rhythm of Rivalry: Book 3)

by B. T. Narro

  “They don’t give armor to women?” Zoke assumed.

  “It’s not because we’re women,” Effie answered. “It’s because I’m a mage and Reela is a psychic.”

  “If a sword is going to strike us, then it’s going to strike us hard,” Reela added. “There’s no point in wearing armor because we don’t have any skill in defending ourselves. So we do away with the extra weight.”

  “If we can’t stop them with magic or psyche before they get to us, there’s nothing armor’s going to do to protect us,” Effie said.

  “But Steffen has a tunic,” Zoke said.

  “I’m trained to fight,” Steffen said. “All chemists will engage in combat using potions and swords. Though our priority will be keeping distance and treating injuries of those who’ve fallen, if the battle goes on long enough.”

  Vithos entered through the front door. He had on a blue robe that wasn’t much different from Reela’s except his sleeves were shorter. “I don’t like dress,” he commented. “I don’t understand why I need wear it?”

  Reela giggled. “So everyone will know you’re on our side.”

  “Won’t they see me kill Krepps?”

  Zoke answered him in Kreppen. “It’s a matter of pride.”

  “You’re proud to wear that?” Vithos asked in the same language.

  “I am.”

  “Then I will be, too.”

  “Settled?” Reela asked in common tongue.

  “Settled,” Zoke answered.

  “I’m sure there are a lot of preparations that need to be done,” Steffen said. “We should be meeting with our instructors.”

  “Where are you supposed to go, Vithos?” Reela asked.

  “Terren. I want see you all first. Say…” He transitioned to Kreppen. “Jektik. How do you say it in common tongue, Zoke?”

  “Fight hard,” Zoke said it for him.

  “Fight hard,” Vithos repeated. “Jektik.”

  “Jektik.” Reela smiled as she said it.

  “Jektik,” Steffen and Effie spoke in unison.

  As they left the house, Zoke’s thoughts turned to Zeti. Every time he thought of his sister, the image of her standing before him was sweeter than the first gulp of water after hours on Warrior’s Field. But now the image evoked nothing but dread. His greatest hope was she wouldn’t be part of the army marching toward them.

  Chapter 35:

  EFFIE

  Effie was lined up alongside her fellow Group One mages, looking out over the wall. Her instructor had told her that the parapets of the Academy’s walls were designed to protect mages from arrows. She wondered if this information was what kept her at ease as she waited for the Krepps to come from the east.

  The walls themselves were ten feet tall, though there was some concern that the Krepps would be able to jump high enough to grab on to the tops of them and climb up, even without rope.

  “Where are the Slugari?” Effie asked.

  “There wasn’t enough time to reach them, from what I understand,” Penny said. “They’re tunneling into the King’s designated areas within Kyrro and can’t be reached until that’s finished.”

  No matter, Effie told herself. We don’t need them to win this.

  Although Terren had made his speech hours ago, she still felt the effects of her sprouted seed of anger. The only way she would panic now was if the Krepps marched past the Academy and straight into Oakshen.

  Her parents were both mages, though Effie had surpassed their ability since joining the Academy. Neither of them had attended the school, and they weren’t part of the Kyrro Army, either.

  Besides teaching magic, Effie’s father was a bookbinder and copier. He worked with authors to put their pages into a book. Then he copied the book and helped sell it if he believed in the work.

  It was easy to think of her father hunched over a table working by candlelight. But she couldn’t imagine him or her mother standing up against Krepps and shooting them with fireballs.

  Gabby was even more helpless. What’s she going to do, throw potions at them?

  Effie couldn’t stand the thought of staying behind the Academy’s walls while the Krepps marched into Oakshen—where no walls protected the city. All of her trust would be in the Kyrro Army. And the majority of them are going to be defending Kyrro City, specifically the King and his castle.

  There were warriors on each corner of the Academy’s eastern wall. They were equipped with bows, and Effie hoped they knew how to use them. Alex was with the other warriors behind the eastern gate. She couldn’t see him from where she stood—or she just couldn’t pick him out from the others.

  They all wore thick blue tunics. Even Zoke was hard to spot without a close look. Effie found him, though. Then she saw Alex right beside him. Their instructor was pacing as he delivered a speech.

  Unlike warriors and mages, the psychics weren’t all clustered in one group but spread throughout. Reela had been placed somewhere out of sight, and a male psychic had been put on the wall between Effie and other mages. But Reela must’ve spotted Effie at some point, for she came up the ramp to the wall and exchanged stations with the male psychic.

  “Just like atop the Fjallejon Mountains, Eff,” Reela said.

  “Except this time I’ve actually slept the night before.”

  Reela grinned. “They don’t stand a chance.”

  “Do you know where Steffen is?” Effie hadn’t seen him earlier, and she wasn’t sure where the chemists were stationed.

  “He’s with others who’ll be working with some of the warriors,” Reela pointed. “There, on the outskirts.”

  Effie saw him then. He looked small in comparison to the other men nearby. He had a sword in one hand and a potion in the other. Around the forearm of his potion hand was a small shield.

  “The Krepps had better come to the Academy,” Reela commented, intently watching the crowns of hills that hooked in from the north.

  “We’ll chase after them if they don’t.”

  The afternoon sun became trapped behind a cloud so that a cold shadow crossed over the Academy.

  Ding! The Redfield bell chimed. Ding! The scout atop its tower must’ve spotted the Krepps.

  Ding! Ding! Ding!

  A gray mass started seeping in through the hills, unrecognizable at their distance if Effie hadn’t known they were Krepps.

  Every student and instructor was silent as they watched.

  The Krepps seemed to be coming straight for the Academy, though they still were too far away to know for sure. They were coming from the east, and Kyrro City was almost directly behind the Academy. Oakshen was farther south, and so far it didn’t seem as if the Krepps were headed there.

  Good, let them come to us.

  When the Krepps were close enough for Effie to see each creature individually, some began to stop. A monstrous thing wiggled through to the front. It looked similar to a Slugari but was so much larger it couldn’t…suddenly she remembered hearing about the massive Slugari that led the Krepps.

  “Is that…” Effie began.

  “Doe or Haemon,” Reela answered. “Vithos would know which one.”

  “Where is he?”

  “With the warriors around the gate.”

  Effie looked closely to find him but couldn’t. He must’ve been too close to the gate. Effie pictured him standing against it, peering out through the bars. The Elf had been fearless since she’d known him.

  While many of the Krepps had stopped, most continued eastward, marching just south of the Academy. Their target was clear—Kyrro City.

  Before Effie could feel relief, she needed to see all of them, every Krepp. Only when none marched toward Oakshen would her worries fade.

  Unfortunately, other students had family in Kyrro City, and they began to voice their alarm. But their instructors and the students around them convinced them they needed to stay. One was a mage nearby who wanted to stop the Krepps before they got to the city.

  “That’s what Welson’s a
rmy is for,” Penny told her. “There’s thousands more defending the city than there are here. Your family will be safe.”

  “My brother is part of that army,” the young woman complained.

  “Then the last thing he would want is you leaving us to go protect him,” someone else rebuked.

  “That’s true,” Effie couldn’t help but comment.

  The young woman let her complaints become silent, her face showing dismay as the Krepps continued to march.

  The massive Slugari leader was in between the two groups of Krepps—one group standing too far to shoot with arrows or fireballs and the other keeping a safe distance from the Academy’s southern wall as they passed by. The Slugari seemed to be shouting orders at the Krepps who were moving, gesturing with his diminutive arms.

  If Effie didn’t know of his ability with magic, she wouldn’t have been threatened by the sight of him. Like a Slugari, he was plump with rolls of fat. Though this Slugari was a burden on the eyes—far fatter than any other Slugari she’d seen and a dirty brown color instead of the shimmering translucent green that reminded her of Reela’s eyes.

  With disappointment, Effie realized she couldn’t be the one to kill him. A fireball to the face would be her only method, but surely he could block any of her spells with a wall of Sartious Energy.

  No, it must be a sword or an arrow.

  Effie heard her instructor muttering to herself, “I’m sure whoever finishes off that thing will receive a title.”

  If only our Slugari allies were here. With their Bastial Energy feeding into Effie’s body, she might be able to gather the strength needed to cast through the massive enemy leader’s Sartious wall.

  The Krepps in front of them still refused to move. It became clear they were waiting for all the Krepps marching toward Kyrro City to get past the Academy.

  “How many are there?” someone asked.

  It was a good question, Effie realized. How many had they seen so far, ten thousand?

  “Scouts told the King there were between eighteen and twenty thousand marching,” Effie’s instructor answered.

  Finally, Effie saw the last of the Krepps, the tail end of their army pushing some device with wheels: Hanging from ropes, a battering ram swung in the air.

  For the castle, Effie realized. Then she noticed an identical battering ram being pushed to the front of the Krepps before her.

  She could hear instructors bellowing at the archers on each corner of the Academy wall. She leaned back from her line for a glimpse, finding the men straightening their backs and pulling arrows from their quivers.

  “Don’t gather BE just yet,” Penny warned the mages.

  The Krepps started yelling inexplicably, and with that they began to charge. The massive Slugari began to glow—his whole body. The amount of BE he’s sucking in is enough to change his pigment. Effie feared for what was next, unable to take her eyes off him.

  “Gather!” Penny yelled.

  The Krepps were almost to the gate! Effie was incredulous at how fast they were. She pulled in Bastial and Sartious Energy.

  “Fire!”

  Effie and all of the mages near her unleashed fireballs. They exploded into the Krepps. The chaos it created made it impossible for Effie to see what kind of damage had been done.

  “Look out!” someone yelled.

  Immediately, Effie knew to check on the enormous Slugari. A fireball had begun to soar toward them. Effie couldn’t tell its exact size, just that it was larger than any Marie had ever cast.

  She could see that it was going over her head.

  “Move!” a warrior instructor commanded far behind her.

  A pack of warriors dispersed to make room for the massive fireball that was about to land on top of them. When it hit the dirt, Effie could feel the heat against her face even though she was nowhere near it.

  “Gather!” Penny was shouting. “Fire!”

  Effie wasn’t the only one distracted by the Slugari. The next series of fireballs the mages on the wall cast weren’t nearly as in unison as before.

  Still, she noticed what appeared to be nearly a hundred Krepp corpses after the fire cleared. It didn’t seem to matter, though. There were thousands, and they were jumping over their fallen comrades, nearly at the wall.

  “Keep firing,” Penny said.

  But the Slugari was continuing to fire as well. Another fireball was sailing over the wall. This one went far enough to burst against the roof of a house. The buildings around it were where the kitchen staff and farmers lived, a series of homes with the same coziness as the student houses on the other side of the Academy. Effie’d heard those personnel had been moved to Kyrro City for the time being.

  Can our archers reach the Slugari? Effie had never heard of mages being able to cast fireballs farther than arrows, but this creature was no ordinary mage.

  Warriors on the southern side of the wall seemed to be shooting at him. Though from what Effie could gather, their arrows were missing.

  Even worse, Kreppen archers were now shooting at them. Effie heard someone scream and fall backward after being struck by an arrow.

  “Climbers!” Penny yelled.

  The Krepps had reached the wall, some tall and agile enough to jump and grab on to the parapets. Effie burned one in the face with a jet of fire before he could swing his leg over. He let out a scream that was far from Human, a deep screech.

  Reela propelled her hand forward to make one fall from psyche. Then she drew her dagger and pricked the fingers of another nearby.

  “Mages, switch!” The command was given by many of the instructors at once.

  The warrior behind Effie stepped forward with his sword already drawn. It was their turn to keep the Krepps off the walls. Effie and the other mages hurried down the ramp to position themselves for a breach.

  “Stop, go back!” An instructor gestured at Effie soon after she got down from the wall.

  Maybe she noticed the shadow or felt the heat, but somehow she knew it must’ve been a fireball from the Slugari. It landed fifteen yards in front of her with a sharp crash, the force of it knocking her on her back.

  She managed to get back on her feet and helped up another woman nearby. No one was hit, but it was only a matter of time before that changed.

  “Someone needs to kill that Slugari!” one warrior instructor screamed at another.

  The one to reply was on the wall with archers around him. “He’s too far away!”

  Effie felt something brush against her shoulder. Turning, she saw a rope with a loop as it was being drawn back. Krepps were throwing them over the wall in hopes they’d hook onto something.

  She heard a few screams and noticed students’ legs getting caught in the ropes. One was pulled over the wall.

  The rope in front of her got stuck on the ramp, where a wall with ridges ran along its edge. Effie saw the rope being jerked—tested. A moment after the tests were complete, she set it on fire to make it come loose. By the rate at which it was flung upward between two warriors and then flew over the eastern wall, a Krepp had to have been climbing it. Effie listened for a scream but couldn’t hear it over the general noise of battle.

  There were other ropes that had caught onto something. Effie quickly ran to each one and burned them. By then, a few Krepps actually had made it over the wall, but only their corpses remained, killed by the warriors and psychics waiting for them.

  “Let the mages through!” It was Terren’s voice. He was pressed against the wall beside the gate. From the way no one stood in front of it, Effie assumed Krepps on the other side were shooting arrows through the gaps in the steel bars.

  This suspicion was confirmed when a man peeked around the wall and an arrow zoomed past him just as he retracted his head.

  “Quickly, before they get the battering ram to the gate,” Terren said.

  One mage on either side of the gate pushed through to the edge of the wall, keeping out of view of their attackers.

  “Mages ready?” T
erren asked.

  “Yes,” they answered.

  “Vithos, know what to do?” Then Effie noticed the Elf beside Terren. “You and the other psychics will jump out right after the mages start casting.”

  “I know,” Vithos said.

  “Then psychics, are you ready?”

  “Ready,” around ten people answered.

  “Go!” Terren yelled.

  The two mages at the gate created a jet of fire from their staffs and held them around the corner, pointing them into the gate. Effie could hear Krepps screaming.

  Vithos and the other psychics leapt out from the wall, each holding their palms forward to cast pain.

  The Krepps’ screams worsened.

  “Mages, line up behind the warriors,” Terren said. “Into position, now!”

  Not all of the warriors carried shields, but those who did crouched and pressed them against the gate. A line of mages knelt behind them, their staffs pointed over each warrior’s shield, extending through the bars of the gate. Of those Effie could recognize besides Terren, all of them were third-year students or instructors.

  Arrows crashed into the bars of the gate and the shields held by the warriors. A few of them flinched, but no one was struck. In return, the mages blasted fireballs through the bars.

  Effie felt as if she wasn’t doing enough. Her role was to wait for Krepps to breach either the wall or the gate, but both seemed to be holding well. Reela was still atop the wall, debilitating Krepps with pain the moment they made it over so a nearby warrior could run his blade through them.

  “What’s the Slugari doing?” Effie yelled to Reela when it looked like she had a moment.

  “He’s slithering toward the gate!”

  Effie hustled over to Terren. “The Slugari is coming,” she notified him.

  “Alright warriors, keep an eye ahead for that ugly brown bastard.”

  A barrage of arrows and fire continued to be exchanged at the gate.

  Soon the mages stopped casting. Effie came around behind them for a look and found the reason—the Krepps were too far away. Then the cluster of Krepps spread apart and the Slugari came through the center.