The fire burned out, having set a large swath of pines aflame for a hundred yards. The mage did not seem the slightest bit surprised that Endrance stood unharmed from the blast. The blade of the knife glowed brightly from the heat, and only the ground beneath his feet was not scorched.
“Good,” the figure said, the voice muffled by the mask and the ringing in Endrance’s ears. “You’re not entirely incompetent.”
“I have managed to make it this far. I had to have had some skill.” The wizard retorted. While he reacted, he mentally prepared himself for a fight. Someone he hadn’t even seen before. Why hadn’t he been able to sense him?
“True, but you’ve hardly fought another mage in serious combat, have you?” the opponent replied. “You’re in over your head.”
Endrance mentally selected another spell. “You have no idea how much I already know that!” he exclaimed, leaping to the side as he flung a blast of lightning.
The enemy mage laughingly swatted the spell out of the way and launched another blast of fire, followed by thrusting his hand up and releasing a clenched fist.
“Inumbrae!” The mage shouted. Endrance was able to shield himself from the flames, but was unable to do anything about the darkness spell. From the mage’s opened fist, blackness poured out, expanding into a sphere of darkness whose depths were impossible to gauge.
Endrance had hoped that his recently discovered dark vision would have been able to see through such a spell, but for some reason it wasn’t working. Being familiar with the spell, he knew how it was designed to block light, but he hadn’t even considered how it would affect his dark vision.
“Did that look familiar to you, Endrance?” the voice called from within the darkness. Endrance immediately empowered his wards, knowing that all the spell did was create darkness. It wouldn’t stop another blast of fire, or even worse, from happening.
He knew he had to either retreat from the spell’s area or negate it. Kaelob had taught him the basics, but the enemy was right; he didn’t have much experience fighting other spellcasters. Endrance recast his sensing spell; aiming in the general direction he had last seen the mage.
While he was suddenly aware of several hundreds of strange species of insect and one terrified family of rodents, the mage wasn’t there.
“Aww… your detection magic didn’t work on another mage.” The voice echoed through the darkness. “Foolish boy.”
Endrance couldn’t tell where the enemy was, but he kept moving. It was a bad idea; he had moved barely five steps before he bounced off the side of a tree. Spinning, he crashed to the ground, which actually saved his hide as something impacted the tree, showering him with splinters.
“You do seem to be lucky, though.” The voice responded. “It appears that you do have the fates on your side.”
Endrance turned in the direction the spell seemed to have come from and thrust his hand down into the ground, recasting the sensory spell. Again, though he got a sense of several creatures, there were no humans.
“I told you, that won’t work.” The mage taunted.
Endrance recognized a familiar bit of feedback from the spell, a gap in the pattern of insects and animals that must be the Ewer. He thrust his hand out towards it and fired another bolt of lightning.
He didn’t hear the bolt connect with anything, but heard the enemy mage grunt as he must have moved to protect the artifact he came to collect.
“A dangerous gambit, Endrance.” The voice said; a notable strain could be heard in the attacker’s voice.
“I knew you were up to the task!” Endrance replied, having had time to put the trunk of a tree between him and the Ewer. “I think I’ll try it again.”
“You fool!” The enemy mage retorted. “Destroying the Ewer will only delay our plans, and ensure your agonizing death!”
Endrance heard him, but was only paying partial attention as he focused on building up a counter-spell for the darkness imposed. His mouth on autopilot for the moment, he replied. “An agonizing death… Can we get any more dramatic here? I mean really. Did you and Kalenden get lessons together or something?”
Something incredibly hot hit the tree and Endrance felt heat blast past him on either side. His ward tattoos, thankfully, were capable of protecting him from the secondary heat wave. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Endrance retorted.
“I will kill you, you foolish little boy.” The voice menaced, much closer now. “And bring your lifeless corpse back to our master to do with what she wills.”
“There are two problems with that threat,” Endrance called. He was finally ready. He slung one spell as he shifted positions. “One, whatever magic is perverting the Atastos doesn’t work on me.”
“And two?” the mage said, taking the bait.
“Two is, I’m not so easy to kill.” Endrance said. He formed the opposing mudra for the darkness spell and spoke the word of power. “Dirumbrae!”
The magical darkness shattered into a cloud of black fragments and faded. Endrance rolled to one side and stood. The enemy mage was barely ten feet away from him, his own hand spread to release another blast of fire. He hesitated, as there were two of Endrance standing before him, far enough apart that he couldn’t hit both of them with his flame wave spell. He released his spell, and Endrance’s illusory double was destroyed.
As the enemy mage turned to orient on him, Endrance reached deep inside, grasping for the understanding of the spell he had slung only once before. The spell form provided it, seeming all too eager to please him.
“Animorbus!” Endrance shouted the final word of power, thrusting out with both hands. The first time he had encountered that spell, it had looked like a smoky lance of dark energy. It had been a spell the goblin shaman had been learning, but it had been incredibly inefficiently understood. When properly grasped, there was no smoke, just a ripple of spiritual power.
The mage threw a hand out and conjured a shield. The soul lance impacted it, unlike the last time he had used it. The shield cracked as the spell pushed against it, but it had delayed the lance just long enough for the mage to sidestep the shot.
The mage’s eyes were wide as he regarded the Spengur again. Part of the mage’s robes, the right sleeve and part of the hood, crumbled to ash from being too close to the spell’s energy. The right side of the white mask had blackened like a paper too close to flame, but didn’t fall apart.
“How did…” the mage sputtered, off guard. “I’ll… leave you, for now. But I’ll be back for the Ewer!” The mage shouted, leaping back. As he was midair, he swept his left hand in an arc towards the ground, his fingers flashing through a quick symbol. “Ostideria!” He shouted.
A black tear ripped open in the ground, glittering with specks of light that stretched on into the void. The mage fell through the rip and vanished, the tear closing an instant later.
Endrance recovered his knife and surveyed the area, turning and looking around for the mage. He didn’t spot him, but almost too late saw the hulking Atastos lumbering towards him, its great speed from before reduced by having its hip nearly powdered by Endrance’s magic.
“I really hate these things!” Endrance shouted, jumping back. The thing swiped at him once, twice, a third time, each one barely missing the mage’s face. Endrance hadn’t enough time to prepare any spell, but he could swing with his knife. The still hot blade caught the hand of the thing as it swung again, slicing through the palm and carving off its fingers. Unfeeling of any pain or fear, it kept up the attack.
A spear suddenly erupted from its chest and two swords appeared at either side, slicing into the legs of the beast. Gnaeus’ wolfmen had found him. The four wolves took the large Atastos apart with swift and precise brutality, while Gnaeus appeared beside the mage.
“Are you harmed?” he asked.
Endrance nodded. “Battered, I think I broke something, but I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“Wrach called us to arms the moment he heard your lightning and saw the night sky light
up.” Gnaeus replied. “We got here as soon as we could.”
Endrance had hoped that would have happened when he fired off the first lightning bolt. “I knew I could count on you.” He said, wincing as pain started creeping back into his senses. “Give me a second.”
Endrance cast his healing spell and immediately began to breathe easier. Whatever ribs he had cracked, mended. He was a little tired, still sore all over, but was otherwise intact.
The wolfmen rejoined him, and Endrance sighed. “Sorry, I got lost.”
“It seems you were right where you needed to be.” Gnaeus said. “They must have come to retake the object you had us capture.”
“They had.” Endrance confirmed. “But it was another mage along with that brute. A human mage.”
“A human?” Gnaeus said, sniffing the air. “I cannot tell. There is too much smoke.”
Endrance glanced back at the burning section of forest. “Oh yeah… that happened.”
“This does not bode well.” Gnaeus advised. “We must leave now.”
“Okay, you’ll get no objections from me. Let’s grab the artifact and get out of here.” Endrance directed.
They were able to vacate the area before any more Atastos showed up to investigate. Once the Ewer had been unearthed, the uneasy aura it had continued to bother Endrance. Something about what he had dreamed had made him afraid, and it had been related to the golden thing the wolves carried for him. As they moved further away from Balator, Endrance wondered what was inside the thing that scared him so badly. He got the feeling that, one way or another, he was going to find out. And it would be soon.
Chapter 20
The team of wolves moved at a quick trot, forcing Endrance to jog to keep up. He had long since reached the point of exhaustion, but kept pushing himself. They covered ground quickly, and it was not very long until they had made it across the flatlands. In the distance, Mount Balator glimmered with the light of hundreds of small fires.
As the wolfmen rested, Endrance returned to walking in circles as his breath slowed. “I wonder how much longer it will be?” he asked aloud.
“Hmm?” one of the wolves replied, looking towards the mountain with him.
“You know, until the Ascension is completed.” Endrance clarified.
“Shouldn’t be too much longer.” The unidentified wolf said. “Gnaeus said they have to finish by sunrise.”
Endrance nodded. “Yes. They do.”
The wolf shrugged and went back to cleaning his weapons. Endrance looked over at the golden artifact and sighed. The Ewer was nagging at him. It was something he should have recognized immediately, but his dream had been so many vapors when he thought back to it. There was something he had realized and it had something to do with the mountain itself, but now that he had been awake he couldn’t remember it.
One thing he did realize was that, since he had awoken, the wolfmen had been making more sense to him. Their social behaviors, the way they interacted with each other, even their language was more easily discerned than before. In fact, he realized that he could understand two of the conversations going on between the wolves as they rested, and they were speaking in their native language.
Several of the words were difficult, as if the meanings had shifted slightly during the centuries spanning the time the three mages had learned the language and the current generation’s grasp. It was like Endrance had learned the ancient form of their language. Now that he thought about it, he probably knew some daemonic as well. Whatever portions of the language Kalenden knew. For all he knew, he could have been talking to the succubus he’d fought in that language without realizing it.
He walked over to the Ewer, examining the etched surface. The gold had been carved precisely, much in the same way that his bracers had been. Arcane script encircled it from bottom to top, with several geometric symbols meant to channel energy in ways that Endrance would need days of time studying to figure out. At first glance though, he got the feeling that it was meant to contain something potent.
Endrance reached out and touched the gold surface, despite the little thought in the back of his mind screaming that it was a bad idea.
It had been right. Endrance felt his arm lock up as his fingertips barely touched the surface. Creeping paralysis washed up his arm, and before he knew it, he couldn’t pull away from the contact he had made. Starting at his fingertips, the sensation of warmth was leeched away by the Ewer. Endrance could only grit his teeth as his fingers, then his hand, and then the skin under his bracer paled as his vitality was being drained. His voice had somehow left him and he had no way to call for help.
It was siphoning not the energy of his aura, but the spark of vitality that was his life. The infinitesimal speck of power that his aura sprang from was being attacked directly. It was exactly the same way that the Soul Lance wiped the life from its victims. Endrance struggled to fight off the effect, pouring some of the power of his aura into the gap.
The influx of power disrupted the Ewer enough for the mage to fall back away from it. The connection severed, his paralysis faded, leaving him cradling his numb hand and forearm. Parts of his upper arm had started turning gray, but color was slowly seeping back to his extremity.
“Ugh.” He grunted. “That’s going to hurt when all the feeling comes back.”
Wrach walked up chewing on a piece of something that smelled bloody. “What’s going to hurt?” he asked.
“Don’t… touch the Ewer. Actually, make sure no one touches the artifact.” Endrance directed. “It’s unhealthy to touch the thing.”
“What happened to your hand?” Wrach pressed.
Endrance looked up at the wolf. “Touched it.” He said grimly.
“We have had to touch it several times, but it is merely cold to us.” Wrach replied.
The wizard sighed. “Of course. It’s probably just me.”
“Ah.” The wolf replied. After a pause, he held out a piece of meat. “Rabbit?”
Endrance eyed the bloody hunk of meat. “Was it cooked?”
“See any fires?”
“Good point.” Endrance shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t handle raw meat like your kind can. It would just make me sick.”
“Ah.” Wrach grunted, taking a bite of the rabbit. “Hope you brought food.”
The wizard shook his head, chuckling. “Nah, I honestly expected to either be dead or home by this point, really. I didn’t really think much past that.”
Wrach gestured obscurely with the rabbit haunch. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Expect things?”
“Not think past your next battle.”
“But if I die, what’s the point?”
“What if you live?” Wrach countered. “Having plans tends to help your desire to survive be strong.”
Endrance stared into the distance, looking up at the mountain. “You’re probably right.” Endrance replied. “I haven’t really seen much point in it, but I think wanting to accomplish no more than just the current action has been irresponsible of me.”
Wrach rolled his eyes. “I’m surprised you made it to be Alpha of your pack with such undeveloped survival skills.”
Endrance turned to the wolf next to him. “Is that a challenge?” Endrance asked.
Wrach took a step back, surprised that he had received a response so much akin to one a fellow wolfman would have given. “N-no. I don’t challenge you!” he protested, shaking his head.
Endrance nodded. “Good. ‘Cause with how I feel right now, I think a baby could knock me down.”
“It couldn’t be that easy.” Gnaeus’ voice came from directly behind him, causing the mage to startle. “Your children cannot even move, much less fight a grown man, no matter how badly he feels.”
“Gods!” Endrance exclaimed, stepping to the side so he could see both the wolves at once. “You startled me!”
“We have a problem.” Gnaeus stated. “The Atastos aren’t content to wait until dawn.”
Endran
ce looked the Alpha in the eyes. “Show me.” He said.
The wolfman led him to a small rise of snow and rock. Clambering up, Endrance squinted into the distance towards the mountain. He rubbed his eyes, blinked again, and still saw the same thing.
The snowy white covered flatlands before the walls of Balator were clustered around the gates with the black forms of thousands of Atastos. What was worse was that a divergent force moved towards them, the shadow of their approach like a spilled vial of ink leeching through white cotton cloth. They advanced quickly, and in numbers beyond what he could easily discern.
Endrance hung his head. “I don’t think I can keep running.”
“I’ve been surprised you’ve run for as long as you have.” Gnaeus replied. “I found a defensible position, but we will have to fight if we want to survive the night.”
“How much time?” Endrance asked.
“Minutes.”
Endrance ran his hand through his hair, which had already looked disheveled and dirty. “Might as well get it over with.”
As Endrance and Wrach followed Gnaeus at a trot, the Second turned to the wizard. “So, got anything you plan to do after this battle to the death?”
Endrance forced a smile. “Breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” the wolf replied with a confused frown.
“Yes. Big breakfast with eggs and sliced meat and loaves of bread with butter and cheese and fruit and wash it all down with enough tea to drown a platoon of barbarians…” Endrance rambled as they followed the lead wolf, a grim look on his face.
The wolfman glanced at the mage appreciatively. “Sounds like you’re hungry.”
“I am.”
“Are you sure you can even fit that much food in you?”
“I’m damn well intending on finding out.” He stated with confidence.
Gullin? Endrance asked.
Endrance! Gullin replied, his mental ‘voice’ distant. Where have you been?
Spellscribed: Ascension Page 30