by Rosie Scott
Shik! The arrow stuck out of thin air before my eyes. A second later, and it fell to the ground, surrounded by the sounds of an invisible body hitting the floor. I was thankful for Azazel's eyes. I hadn't known she was there. I nearly used the spell on myself again, but I needed my shield, and the glow of its life energy would give away my location. I decided not to waste the magic.
The dead advanced to the east. I threw death energy to my feet, and black tendrils sought out recent corpses from both our enemy's army and my own. They rose with groans and creaks, though once they were on their feet and equipped with weapons, they rabidly rushed forward. I noticed with curiosity that dead Alderi made for better corpses, for they moved quicker than most. They still were not as fast and nimble as their living counterparts, which was a disadvantage here.
I barely caught a glimpse of emerald green energy before I realized it was directed at me. My body immediately froze against my will, paralyzed, and I fell stiffly to the ground. My physical shield was still surrounding me in a bubble, and as I laid helpless amongst the corpses and puddles of blood, curses at myself for not also using a magical ward fluttered through my head.
The assassin in question rushed through the dead, before she skidded to a stop over me, slicing her dagger down toward my throat, over and over again, chipping away at the shield in a desperate attempt to decapitate me before her paralyze spell's effects wore off. My body was paralyzed, but my mind was not. I was fully aware. The assassin clearly didn't know how necromancy worked.
I threw all of my focus toward the woman, and the dead around her turned, crying out spitting protests as they swarmed her. She didn't notice, so obsessed with the fame and gold killing me would give her that she continued hacking at the shield, until the magic flickered with weakness. The corpse just to the right of me brought an already bloodied sword down over the back of my attacker's head, and her body jolted above me as the weapon punctured her spinal cord and brain stem. Her eyelids twitched as her eyes dulled between them, and the energy force separating us was splattered with her blood as it fell.
Satisfied, the dead left the woman lying over my shield, and rushed back into battle. I was still paralyzed, and as I waited for the spell to release its grip on my body, I saw Azazel hurry into my vision, before he shoved the assassin's body off of the remnants of the shield. His black eyes found mine, ensuring it was only magic keeping me down. He stood above me, protecting my body as I waited to gain control of it once again, shooting arrows off into the crowds.
Finally, my limbs fell back to the stone floor, released from their tense hold. I struggled to stand amongst slick blood, but as usual, Azazel aided me, grabbing my arm to help me up. I gave us both energy wards, because I didn't want magic working on either of us again.
“Fighting your sisters is nothing short of annoying,” I hissed, somewhat in jest. Their constant use of illusion and alteration magic was an immense inconvenience.
“It's nothing a god can't handle,” Azazel retorted. I glanced over at him, seeing he meant it as a playful jab, because a smile lit up his face.
“You're right,” I agreed, before we hurried after the dead.
We were in the market square, now, where the battle was so heavy that blood visibly sprayed through the air over the heads before us. The roars of the beasts were common here, shattering eardrums with their ferocity. The beastmen had come from the south, and my army of dead had come from the west. Now, we surrounded them. It was the exact reason I'd chosen such a route to get here from the tower.
I found many of my friends fighting here. Jayce was content to stay in the river in her crocodile form, surging out of the waters to grasp an unsuspecting body before snapping back into the river, spinning the women underwater in a death roll that tore flesh apart and drowned the victims. Vallen was in the midst of mauling a woman as a bear, his teeth tearing through her torso until her body was hollowed out. I could not see Calder, but I did find Ricco in his beast form, gouging out an assassin's throat while swiping back at more attackers with his thick rodent tail, trying to fend them off.
Ricco needed the most help, so I hurried to him. The rat fought with a vengeance, holding his ground against multiple foes. I leeched from the women's lives, forcing them to collapse around him, one at a time. At one point he spun to me, sensing my presence, though recognition flashed through his beady eyes. He appeared thankful for the assistance. Blood ran from his patchy fur in sticky streaks. I did not give him an energy ward yet, because I would have been unable to heal him through it. My own ward was already weakening as I was bombarded with alteration and illusion magic from the surrounding Alderi. I reached out to Ricco's wounds, letting white energy begin to meld his flesh back together as he fended off our attackers.
“Seriin!”
Ricco's hisses and squeals of anger simply stopped. Confused, I glanced up above the charcoal patches of hair at his back, looking for the woman who had screamed the spell. Seriin, I thought, racking through my mind to remember where I'd heard the spell before. Seriin?
A memory came back to me, from half a moon ago in Thanati. Jakan, Kyrin, Ricco, and I were all in Kyrin's apartment. Seriin had been the spell Jakan had used to calm Kyrin. And now...
Ricco was already affected. He'd stopped fighting altogether, and looked to me with calm eyes that didn't seem to understand we were in the midst of battle. I panicked, hearing the rush of footsteps as assassins closed in on us, no longer keeping their distance from the rat, for Ricco was no longer feral.
I needed to give him a shield; he would not protect himself in this state. I raised a hand, preparing the life spell.
“Desoriencia!” Murky gray energy flew to my head from the same woman. I had half a second to remember it was the confusion spell Jakan had taught me before I found myself stumbling for an understanding of where I was, why I was here. A spell was in my hand, but I couldn't remember what it was. A shield, maybe? Alderi women were surrounding me. One of them resembled someone I knew. I thrust the shield toward her, protecting what was familiar.
“Kai! NO!” The voice to my right was recognizable enough, but I couldn't quite place it. I watched as one of the assassins nearby ran into a slide over the stone, using a dagger to gouge out the throat of the large rat beside me as she swept past the beast on two knees. The animal's eyes registered panic and confusion, before they dulled. The rat collapsed on its side, a pool of blood gushing to the uneven stone from the gory opening of its throat.
Something about the rat's death felt wrong to me. I backed away from its corpse, so confused that I began to panic. Why didn't the rat defend itself? Why was the woman I shielded rushing toward me? Who were these people? Something wasn't right.
I shouldn't be here. Panic swelled in my chest. I saw a young Vhiri man in a high ponytail shoot bolts into my pursuers from a single-handed crossbow, his gray eyes watching after me in alarm.
“Kai!” He screamed, before glancing down to the dead rat with anguish.
I don't know who you are, I thought, panicking. I turned from the man and the women pursuing me. I did not recognize this city or its streets, but I also didn't understand what was happening behind me. I bolted toward the darkness, my disoriented mind seeking freedom from its torture.
Thirty-one
I ran and ran until my lungs were burning themselves into a crisp. The farther from the battle I ran, the darker the streets became. My head was foggy with fear, and the streets nearby were clear. I found a tall, thick mushroom growing out from the corner of a nearby building, stretching its bright light green cap over the street. I skidded to a stop below its welcome light, breathing hard and looking back behind me. My last pursuer crumpled to the ground. A moment later, a male Alderi archer with a head full of slick black hair came into view at the end of the street, his eyes finding me over our distance. He made no move to follow me.
I leaned against the stone building beside me, resting my arm against its cold surface, before resting my head against the limb. My c
hest rose and fell rapidly, my esophagus scratchy with excessive use.
Then, my mind cleared abruptly. I jerked my head up, my eyes finding the battle at the end of the road. Azazel stood in its center, loosing arrows toward the marketplace. It was as if I'd just woken up. I had no recollection of anything that had happened over the past...who knows how long? Why was I suddenly in the center of the city? Why hadn't Azazel followed me?
The last thing I remembered was being helped up from the ground from the assassin who had paralyzed me. I realized I'd fallen victim to mind altering magic, but I had no idea what kind, and how many spells. I hoped it hadn't caused anyone to be hurt. Panic took hold of my heart, realizing I might have been charmed. I had no idea what being charmed was like. I'd never asked Anto if he knew what he was doing when he'd been charmed that first day in Thanati.
If I had been the reason for the death of any of my friends, I would be devastated.
“Azazel!” I screamed it down the road, hurrying toward him. The archer looked through the dark streets to me.
“Is your mind clear, Kai?” He shouted back.
“As clear as it can be,” I replied, my legs fighting me with fatigue. “I don't remember anything since being paralyzed.”
Azazel nodded as he fired more arrows before him. I finally reached my partner, desperate to learn more of what had happened when my mind was gone, but he was saying nothing.
“Azazel, what happened?”
“You were bombarded with illusion and alteration magic while trying to save Ricco. Your ward was overwhelmed. They hit you with confusion and fear, and you protected one of your enemies with a shield that was meant for Ricco before you ran.”
No. I spun my head toward the market square. “Ricco is safe?” I asked, desperately, my body trembling with the first waves of anger.
Azazel glanced over to me cautiously, before loosing another arrow. “...no.”
Snap. Just like that, the anger fell hopelessly into rage. I refreshed myself and Azazel with shields and wards, protecting us both from past mistakes. I stalked forward into the thick of battle, my eyes catching on Ricco's bloodied rodent corpse before I moved forward, keeping the image of him in my head, letting it fuel me.
Assassins surrounded me, throwing magic and weapons alike at my shields. I did nothing but leech from those in my path, refreshing my protections with their own energy. My eyes were on the northern tunnel, where more assassins were coming from, commuting from Quellden. I ignored the rest, even as arrows and bolts shot into my shield, and magic was rejected by the ward.
Some of the assassins ran into the tunnel rather than out of it, on their way to report our attack to Quellden. I didn't stop moving until I arrived at the exit.
Creatius les fiers a nienda de material. Fire built up above a palm, and I started at the left side of the tunnel, directing the flames to the ground, moving along the tunnel entrance to create a wall of fire. My shields were pummeled continuously, but I paid them no mind until they started to flicker, only refreshing them as I built fire all of the way across the exit.
I turned to the crowds of Alderi closing in on me, reaching toward them to leech their lives, my head trembling with the power of a greedy leeching high which only desired more.
“Now we are trapped in here together!” I screamed hoarsely at my foes, regenerating my physical shield as a barrage of arrows punctured through the last. “Come and take my fucking bounty!”
It wasn't as if I'd needed to yell at them at all. They all knew who I was, and now I'd blocked their exit. They had no choice but to stay and fight. In my own arrogance and rage, I desired to take all of them on. In their own arrogance, they thought I would be easy to surround and kill. I was quickly encircled, my shields flickering with trauma as I prepared my next spell.
Explodis a friz. Ice crackled in my palms, crawling over the clear magical barrier in crystals, begging to be released. The assassins weren't stupid. They knew I wielded a spell, but they couldn't have known which one.
My magical ward was weakening, but it still protected me. I noted this, because otherwise, my next spell could have killed me. I thrust both hands to the ground, releasing the water magic.
Cold winds rushed from my palms alongside snow and ice. As soon as the magic hit the ground at my feet, it exploded outward in freezing winds and icicles as sharp as blades, which flew through the air, impaling dozens of bodies. Those who did not die were frozen in place, arms still raised with weapons, faces frozen with looks of determination and anger. Because my leeching high had been so powerful, the spell had reached farther than its normal limits, stretching to dozens of Alderi fifty feet in each direction.
I wasn't done. I regenerated the ward which had shattered with the spell, and built up the same ice magic again, repeating the earlier move. The already frozen women around me were now so cold, their bodies could not handle the pressure. The water of their internal organs, blood, and skin expanded at a rapidly unnatural pace from the extreme drop in temperature. All around me, bodies began to explode.
Pop! I was sprayed in blood as the skull of an assassin beside me shattered with the swift expansion of her brain. The body fell. Another woman's heart exploded in her chest, and though her armor didn't break, it creaked and tore with the pressure as the corpse collapsed. Bodies all around me were crashing to the floor in piles of gore, but I redirected my attention elsewhere, now that I was no longer surrounded.
I hurried through rows of frozen, dying victims, my eyes on the guard tower nearby. New hordes of assassins were after me, now, desperately trying to keep me from claiming more of their sisters. With a quick glance, I ensured my friends and the slaves were nowhere near us. I did not want more innocent casualties.
Tranferra la terra ti granula! I directed the earth energy to the base of the tower, repeating the same spell Terran had used against my golem in the Battle of the Dead. The solid stone at the bottom of the structure began to crackle and devolve into granules of dark sand. The spell was not strong enough to turn the entire tower into sand, but it didn't need to be.
The assassins after me skidded to a stop, their eyes on the spell as it broke down the tower's support. The smartest of them ran.
The rock beneath my boots trembled, and the lowest walls of the tower began to crumble. The magic had only worked up a few feet of the base, turning stone into sand, and now the tower was hanging heavily from where it connected into the cavern's ceilings. The weight was proving to be too much for the roof to handle.
I turned to the north and ran. Even the immense satisfaction of my actions could not convince me to stay. The crumbling of the tower echoed through the air, causing even those who fought to look for the source of the noise.
When I reached the intense heat of my fire wall, I spun back around. The tower cracked from the pressure near the top, the weight of the majority of the structure attempting to convince the ceiling to let it free. The assassins below were finding it hard to flee. This part of the marketplace was surrounded by a split in the river, and the bridges offering them passage to the south were cluttered with people in the midst of battle. Some of the women jumped into the river, desperately fleeing from the destruction before it began. Once there, they were feasted upon by Jayce, and another beastman who patrolled the river in the form of a shark.
The cavern groaned, and released its hold on the weakening structure. The tower cracked off along the top, the entire vertical building falling directing downward onto the new sand of its base, before it leaned toward the seductive coaxing of gravity. The assassins were panicking. More jumped into the river, and many women pushed others out of the way. Some ran to the north, where I quickly relieved them of their lives with death magic.
Many tons of stone raced to the cavern floor a second later, toppling into the crowd of assassins from the base to the tip, thick rock smashing into fleeing bodies, crushing them beneath its weight. Only upon its fall did the rest of the structure crack and split, crumbling outward and cau
sing thick, gritty dust to expel outward from its trajectory. As the tower finished its destructive plunge, the top of it shattered alongside the river, chunks of rock splashing into the neon water.
Blood slowly seeped out beneath the fallen tower from dozens if not hundreds of bodies. I was making a mess out of Hazarmaveth, but I'd claimed hundreds upon hundreds of lives today while doing so. My brain was still trembling within my skull from the leeching high. I'd leeched so much energy during my rampage, that even after using multiple spells, my veins were still dancing with it.
The marketplace was emptying. Between my various massive-scale spells, the armies of the dead, the slave recruits, and the beastmen, we were slaughtering them. Hazarmaveth was larger than Thanati, but thanks to Azazel's plan to infiltrate it before attacking, it was proving easier to take.
I raised the dead in the northernmost section of the cavern, and still frozen corpses rose to join the battle. I hurried after them. They hobbled around the fallen tower and over the bridge leading south, where my friends and the beastmen were fighting the last of our enemies.
I wasted no time in giving excess energy to the allies surrounding me. When I refreshed Jakan, he thanked me, before asking desperately, “Kai, are you all right?”
“I'm fine,” I replied shortly, refreshing Anto next. My eyes darted around for Cerin. I hadn't seen him in some time.
“You sure?” Jakan prodded.
“Just angry,” I finally admitted, leeching from another foe.
Jakan nodded as he shot a bolt through an assassin's eye. I grimaced, wondering for a moment what the obsession was with shooting bows at eyes, until I answered the question by myself. It was the easiest way for ammo to puncture the brain.
“You didn't recognize me,” Jakan said a moment later, his voice forlorn. “I was terrified.”