by Justin Sloan
“You’re looking better already, highness,” the servant said, accepting the bowl back from Sir Egland.
“I think we might just survive this ordeal,” The King stated, then turned to Rhona and Alastar. “Thanks to you two, my children returned.”
For a long moment he looked between them, then held out his arms. It was an awkward moment, this stranger wanting to hug them, but they moved into the embrace, and then it was like they had never left. This was their father, and he was alive.
All of the tension and worry seemed to drain from them, and Rhona thought she was about to burst with joy.
“The fight’s not over,” he reminded them. “But when it is, we will have the grandest reunion this land has ever known. Welcome home, children.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kia and Lannis fell to the rear of the retreat, in part out of necessity because of their short legs—being children and all—but also because they saw the other children back there and knew they needed help.
The paladins were here too, all but Oldran, who had taken the lead along with a dozen of their best mages to be on the lookout in case they were being herded into a trap. A team of mages appeared on a ridge above as they all emerged into one of the sinkholes and began preparing spells as the group worked their way up the hidden escape route carved into the side of the small cliff.
“No sign of them,” Kia shouted to one of the mages, then saw it was her father, who had run back for her.
Donnon put a protective arm around her and kissed the top of her head, then turned and offered Lannis a hand up.
“Did they fall back, or did we push them back?” he asked Gerin, who was at the bottom of the sinkhole guiding the others up.
“Hard to say. We worked a number on them and the water seemed to do its job, though it’s a shame we won’t be able to enter there again. There’ll no reclaiming that land now that the ocean is in her.”
“And it’ll cause more erosion, more sinkholes over time,” Laird Summers said, he and Estair now joining Donnon in helping the others.
When Kia reached the top she saw that the defenses were already being set up, and that their escape had led to the edge of the Ghostland Ruins. Nobody ever came here, because the rumor was that anyone who did would be swallowed by the ghosts.
Now she saw why. Standing before them were people clad in white, their robes fluttering around them to give them the appearance of apparitions. Hundreds of them covered an area of rolling brown hills and they were armed with crude spears and axes, although some simply had stones.
Her chest clenched at the look of them and she prepared to call on her fire magic, but a slight shake of her father’s head told her that it wouldn’t be necessary.
Indeed, now she saw Laird Lokane with one of the ghostly men, each giving the other space, but nodding.
Finally Lokane turned and waved his followers on, and the ghost people split like a gate, allowing them entry into their graveyard of a land.
A fireball rose in the distance and then a small dot appeared in the sky. They all knew that it was likely one of Irdin’s wind mages, using her magic to gain a higher viewpoint to see where their prey had gone.
As she dropped out of sight a magic attack began again, but this time the sheets and spears of ice fell well out of range.
“If we keep moving as a group we’re done for,” Donnon stated, a determined look coming over his face.
“I like where your head’s at,” Estair replied. She turned to her uncle. “Keep them safe.”
“This doesn’t sound smart, even though I have no idea what this is.” Laird Summers looked from one to the other, then at Kia. “Come with me, child. This’ll be risky.”
“You clearly don’t know me very well,” Kia replied. “I’m sorry, Laird Summers, but whatever they have in mind, I’ll be part of it.”
Donnon sighed, but apparently he did know his daughter well—at least, well enough to know there would be no stopping her.
“They’ll move in a large group, relying on speed in the chase,” Estair noted. “We’ll go with several small groups, hitting them where we can and aiming for one man—Master Irdin.”
“The hunters become the hunted,” Kia said with a grin. “I like that.”
She turned to Lannis, but he had a sickly green look to him.
“Maybe…maybe I should…” He couldn’t say it, but finally spurted it out. “With all the clans, I’ve been meaning to see if there’s word of my uncle.”
She nodded. “Stay with the larger group; find out what you can. Use your magic to get people to safety and keep the magic off all of you.”
“Once they realize what’s happening, they’ll redirect their attacks on us,” Donnon said. “At that point, Laird Summers, see if you can find several more groups to take up the charge from behind. Hit them from all sides, and maybe we can send these jackals running.”
“Not before killing Master Irdin,” Kia declared.
The others looked at her with that expression she had grown accustomed to—surprise. Well, guess what, people, she thought, I am a warrior now. She wasn’t about to let that piece of rat-shite get away with everything he had done.
“Agreed.” Estair held her gaze, the look in her eyes changing to one of respect, the way a teammate looked at another teammate when their lives were in each other’s hands. “When it comes to that, we strike. But not before. I don’t want anyone here getting ahead of themselves.”
“Fine,” Kia answered, then turned to Lannis and gave him a hug. “You keep them safe, got it?”
He laughed with a nervous grin. “And you give them hell.”
The small team set off, first moving east and then back south to come at them from another direction and remove any chance of them following the direction of their attack to find the others.
The scenery out here was all green rolling hills and tall cliffs in the distance; all except the brown in the direction of the Ghostland Ruins. Whatever had happened there years ago that caused the earth to be forever dead. It must’ve been bad.
When they heard shouting they stopped, pressed against the slope of the hill they were climbing, and slowly crawled to the top. A loud wheezing caught Kia’s attention, and she turned to see that it was her dad.
“And we were worried I couldn’t keep up?” she whispered with a smirk.
“Oh, shut up and focus,” he hissed back.
She nodded, continuing to crawl until she could see the other side. At one of the many sinkholes and fissures in this area, a group of mages were moving out, spreading in various directions.
“If we don’t find them we’re dead, do you understand that?” one of the mages was shouting at the others. “DEAD!”
Two were moving toward the same hill Kia was on, so she pulled back and her dad and Estair did the same. Estair unsheathed her two short swords, motioning with a jerk of her head for them to move back behind some tall grass near the shrubbery a few paces back.
“Irdin led us wrong, I’m telling you,” one of the mages hissed to the other.
“Shut your ugly trap, or I’ll slit your throat myself,” the other replied, and then they were atop the hill, eyes searching the surrounding hills instead of watching where their feet were landing. That was their mistake—Estair sprang up, quickly had both their throats open, and then was back, pulling one of the bodies into the tall grass while Donnon dealt with the other.
“Follow the larger group along this side of the hills,” Estair advised, motioning for them to move.
As they did, they picked up snippets of conversation, discussions of heading back north to connect with the larger group, and if She would really have their heads if they returned unsuccessful. Twice more Estair and Donnon took down soldiers and mages who spread out from the group, but on the third try someone shouted from behind.
“Bodies!” the voice called, then others responded and soon a group ran off behind them, apparently having discovered some of their fallen comrades.
>
“Now move in,” Estair said with a grin.
“You left them out to be seen on purpose?” Kia asked.
“Watch and learn, little birdy,” Estair replied, then charged over the hill.
By the time Kia and her dad caught up Estair was already cutting through two straggling mages while a third started moving her hands to conjure up her magic. Donnon plowed through that one, then turned to Kia and said, “You’re up.”
Kia thrust out her hands so that fire took the nearest mage, while Donnon and Estair amplified that magic, causing it to jump across the others.
Screams erupted from the mages and they fell before their own spells could be completed. Estair gestured downward, running for the nearest opening in the earth. She ducked in, motioning for Kia and her dad to hurry, and the two slid in beside her. Kia cursed softly as her forearm caught on a rock.
They kept down, waiting, and watched as two more mages ran over to see what had happened.
“Holy shite,” one of them said, turning to search for the attackers.
When his back was to them, Estair motioned again and fire shot out to hit him and his companion. A third mage was ready with a wind spell that pushed the fire away to light the surrounding brush instead, and then someone was shouting for Master Irdin.
“Good,” Estair said, barely a whisper.
But then another shout came, this one much less welcome. “Reinforcements to the north!”
“Have them surround the area and spread out!” Master Irdin’s voice said. It sounded like he was not far off, just on the other side of the hill they were currently hiding in. “Seems we have a couple straggling mages who need to be pulled out of hiding and taught some manners.”
“By that you mean ‘skin them and burn them alive,’ right?” a man asked. A moment later they heard the sound of ice forming and the man toppled over, falling into the fissure and landing with his nearly-dead eyes staring right at Kia. He tried to point at her, then laid back as the last of his life left him.
Her dad put a finger to his mouth and motioned them close before whispering, “In a moment we’ll be surrounded. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.”
“Nonsense,” Estair replied. “If we kill that bastard, you unleash your daughter and—”
“That amount of energy?” He shook his head. “The use of enough magic to take out a small army… It would drain her. If there were any left to attack, we’d be out of luck.”
Estair held out a hand, waiting as they heard something nearby. It passed, and they heard others shouting commands in the distance. The search had started.
“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll go for him while you two run. They’ll be out to protect their master, so you two will make it. As long as I end him, we’re good.”
“And then Alastar kills me for agreeing to that.” Donnon shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“What if we all just created a great wall of flames and burned everything above us?” Kia asked. “I mean, right?”
They both looked at her and Estair shook her head. “You’re a messed-up kid.”
“Hey,” Donnon and Kia both said at once.
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Kia replied, glancing between the two. “So that’s a yes?”
Neither had anything to say against the idea, so Kia started preparing herself, but just as she raised her hands, a new noise started them. Battle: shouts, fighting, and men and women dying. The three looked at each other in confusion, then heard those above running past, moving to the battle in the south and west.
“Laird Summers,” Estair said. “Of course!”
“Good thing we didn’t cast that spell or we might’ve gotten him too,” Kia said, her voice catching at the thought. “But now that they’re distracted, come on.”
She pushed her way out and popped out a moment later, finding that what they had suspected was true—a group was attacking from the south, another from the west, and the sorcerers and others were on the move, backs to them.
Only, there was no sign of Master Irdin.
As she realized this, the land around her became covered in shadows. Instinctively, Kia shot out with flames, filling the sky behind her with a wall that singed as ice spears tore into the flames. A moment later Estair was up, shooting arrows through the flames at the dark form they knew to be Master Irdin.
The flames vanished with a wave of his hand and Master Irdin spun on them, glaring.
“You all think you’re so smart, so powerful, so…righteous.” He stood tall, hands held toward them, looking down his nose with disdain. “Do you have any idea what we’re trying to create here? A world of order, an empire under one goddess, united in the face of all evil. That includes you.”
“Out of the four of us,” Kia said, hands at her side like a quick-draw artist, “you’re the only one willing to kill innocents to get what he wants.”
“Seems you have a strange sense of what’s evil,” her dad chimed in.
“In the moments along the way to greatness, the casualties rarely understand why they must be the ones that suffer,” Master Irdin replied. “But that’s the way of it. To achieve greatness, someone must. And it won’t be me.”
“Let’s find out,” Kia said with a smile, just waiting for him to make his move.
A growl emerged from the man, slow and rising until he was shouting. He thrust his hands out and the air turned white as snow flurries circled down around him. One moment it was simply air, but the next the sky was full of sharp ice, like glass, flying toward Kia and the other two.
He just didn’t get it, Kia thought as she flicked her hands out and created a wall of fire that turned the ice to water at her feet.
Apparently he did, because a moment later he had spun away from a counterstrike of fire from Estair and lifted a hand in the air so that the water coursed around them, squeezing like freezing pythons. Donnon had been at the ready and was already pushing back with fire, but just because they were fire mages didn’t mean they were immune to flames. They could only get the fire close enough to melt the outer layer of ice and keep it from growing too strong.
Kia was vaguely aware of the sounds of battle behind them; it was taking all her focus to keep her magic going while ignoring the pain in her legs. A piercing, shooting pain took her in the calf and she would’ve collapsed if the ice had let her, but then Estair was at her side shouting, “Distract him!”
Everything went into the next attack. Instead of a show of power she focused on catching him off guard, sending the heat molecules around him into overdrive, creating a very uncomfortable situation that involved all his air cutting off as well.
In the moment that bought them Estair used her less-used light magic to heal Kia’s legs, and the light pushed off the ice.
The pain was gone, but Kia was drained from that last attack. She collapsed and watched as the magic faded, leaving Master Irdin to stagger back and take a huge breath. Estair was ready with her bow and arrow and sent one flying. This time it caught him right in the shoulder.
When he grunted in pain, huge ice spears shot out of the ground, coming up like large, pointed rocks that would have cleaved them in two if they’d hit. His focus was off, but Kia was spent. And without her fire, the other two didn’t have much they could do; they needed a flame.
A sensation washed over her, as if her mind were telling her it was all okay, that none of this mattered, that the exhaustion was only mental.
She was up in the blink of an eye, without a doubt ready to finish this.
Take the shot, a voice said in her head; it took a moment to process that it was Volney. She registered two shapes on a far hill, barely paying them any attention but subconsciously knowing it had to be Volney and Larick. Larick sent, We believe in you.
In that moment, a thundering sounded and they all turned to see Rose approaching on her unicorn. She rode high, a short sword in the air as she shouted and spun it. The sight was enough to cause even Master Irdin to do a double ta
ke.
And that’s when Kia made her move, focusing on her dad beside her, memories of her mother; anything she could to throw all negativity aside and focus on everything that had made her the powerful, kickass girl she was now. Energy unlike anything she had ever experienced flowed through her, and a quick glance revealed her dad and Estair flanking her, hands on her shoulders, channeling their energy to her.
The flames that shot from her hands were white and blue, concentrated blasts of flames hot enough to melt the rocks below. The beams hit Master Irdin dead-on. He had tried to call upon his ice, but it did no good, simply dissipating to mist as the white flames tore through him.
Nothing remained of him as the flames died away, except for the burning corners of his robe and a skull that stared out of the flames as if in horror. Then it too was consumed.
He was gone. Finally defeated.
All Kia could process was that someone was hugging her, then another someone. Her mind was blank. She wanted to collapse and give up, but the mystics told her as they approached that she had done it, to stay strong, to fight the urge to surrender.
And then the blankness was gone and she was laughing with tears streaming down her face—not of sorrow by any means, but of relief and joy. Rose came to a stop and leaped down from her unicorn, then joined them.
“Hope I didn’t miss too much,” she said with a grin.
“Perfect timing,” Kia replied. “Thank you.”
Rose waved her off, but Kia saw the smile and the red creeping into the woman’s cheeks.
“It’s not over yet,” Donnon noted.
The war was still going on behind them, but as it raged more sounds of victory came from their side, and soon the soldiers and sorcerers were in retreat.
“What’s happening?” Kia asked, confused.
“There!” Volney said running up to them and pointing toward the water. Two large ships had landed and a small army was moving across the land, but at their lead was a shadow zipping through the enemy, tearing them to pieces and crushing those who dared attack. A golden sword shone behind it, and she knew it was Alastar doing his part to fight any Rhona let through to him.