Helios decided his first action and turned his mount on an angle to the onrushing hollows ahead of them. Taking a deep breath as he did, the silver scaled dragaoin released a frigid blast of cold freezing the half dozen to a point that all but two became statues coated in ice. Seeing so many of their hollows incapacitated or destroyed the blue wizard and a green lashed out with magic attacks of their own. Green acidic looking spray was flung from the Zmaj of the same color. The liquid looked a sickly green and Alec made the shield catch it while the blue cast another bolt of lightning.
The second lightning burst struck the ground near Shaelamee. She froze for a moment as did the hollows closest to the attack. It was a near miss, but the strength of the electricity had still stunned them slightly. Luckily, the genasi was able to shake the feeling off before any of the hollows could connect with anything beyond her blocking blade.
Dropping to the ground, the last Zmaj pulled out a massive two handed blade and growled at the girl. His belief that all three were wizards was wrong the boy realized quickly. This dragaoin was bigger than the other two and, even with his scales; it was obvious that he was much stronger physically. His green eyes looked crazed and, as he attacked, the white dragaoin didn't seem to see anything other than the girl in front of him. Slamming through the remaining hollows, the white fighter didn't appear to care whether they were there or not.
His much longer, heavier and thicker sword came crashing down on the much smaller girl. Her knees buckled with the first attack and Shaelamee might have been crushed with a second if not for Alec sending more wind blades into his massive scaled form. Even driven as hard as he could, the wind blades gave the raging monster minor cuts that only appeared to annoy the beast.
The green eyes flit to the boy on the salamander and he immediately forgot the girl under his blade. Roaring vengeance, the dragaoin leaped for the novice.
Alec barely had time to bring his blue shield down in front of the massive attacker as the boy's eye widened in fear. Its power was more incredible than expected, however. Bisecting the shield, the dragaoin's weapon slowed but the magic defense shattered only a moment later.
"Shield, shield!" the boy called out desperately making two more glowing blue barriers. One remained above his head, while the second pushed into the white, scaled lizard trying to force it away.
Shaelamee recovered and slashed at the Zmaj before rolling aside to avoid the claws of the remaining hollows as they sought to finish her while she was distracted by the big bruiser. Fear filled Alec's chest, but the practical young wizard continued to fight hoping that they would survive their newest battle.
Chapter 17- Assassin Sorcerer
Chanting a quick spell, Helios' scales seemed to turn gray, but his form appeared to grow in size slightly as well. When one of the hollows struck him, he didn't even feel the pain. Reaching out and using another spell which made his hand and claws look coated in ice, Helios grabbed the creature by the throat. At first, the frost lingered on the hollow's neck and its struggling looked slower than before. Ice suddenly grew thick around its throat and extended from the dragaoin's hand as well.
When he squeezed, the ice shattered tearing through the creature's neck. Leaving a gaping wound still glistening with ice around the edges, the hollow dropped from the sorcerer's icy hand. If he believed hollows could experience fear, then Helios would have seen it in the last remaining hollow's eyes.
Its skin was frost covered as well and the creature was moving slower after the brush with his cone of ice, but it could still move. The creature turned and ran as fast as it could in a surprising showing of self preservation.
Helios looked up at the two wizards with a frown. Casting flight on himself, the dragaoin didn't lift off the ground at first to prevent giving his tactics away. They were still more intent on Shaelamee and Alec than on him as if he wasn't the biggest threat or perhaps by removing the others they hoped to then take him down alone. He didn't know, but drew his dagger.
Disappearing in a cloud of mist, the silver dragaoin reappeared behind the green wizard. He grabbed the creature by the throat using his chilling touch to create ice so that it couldn't speak even as the dagger plunged into its back moving under the ribs. It wasn't a perfect killing blow, but the green wizard dropped from his hands and the sky for several feet. The flight spell kept the enemy dragaoin from crashing to the ground, but the wizard was incapacitated for a moment as it touched the ice around its throat with one hand and it tried to seal the wound in its back with the other.
Glaring at the blue dragaoin, another chromatic color, Helios remembered a history where their kind had often been the enemy of his metallic kin in the past. Many wars had been fought over the color of their scales. More had been fought over their beliefs.
"You have already lost this fight. Do you wish to lose your life as well?" he asked the blue wizard. Black eyes widened at the sight of the silver scaled dragaoin holding his bloody weapon in one hand hovering only a few feet away from him. His group of hollows had been whittled away. A few were already running leaving just a couple in view as well as the barbaric looking white warrior.
"Gronak will kill the others, even if you defeat us," the blue replied trying to look confident.
"Hold," Helios uttered a command as he pointed at the white dragaoin. It stopped as it grabbed hold of Alec's leg pulling him from the salamander's back. Shaelamee was on the ground slapped aside by the white beast and the two remaining hollows jumped atop the smaller girl seeing their opening.
One of the hollows also froze like a statue. Shae stabbed at the other sending green flame into the wound as the blade slipped into the creature's exposed neck. More fire ignited from the frozen hollow's back while the first fell back. Flames burned away the creature's eyes and exited its nose and mouth. Finished with the first, the girl punched the other freeing herself from its grasp.
While Shaelamee fended off her attackers, Helios disappeared in mist once more to reappear behind the white Zmaj. His dagger switched to his right hand, his preferred hand, before slicing across the white warrior's throat in a shallow cut. Blood began to cascade down its white scaled chest. It still couldn't move as its life's blood steadily left the bestial Zmaj's body.
"Well?" the silver scaled sorcerer asked the blue dragaoin once more.
"Go!" the wizard cried out aghast as he watched his companions in their dire straits. Growling angrily, the dragaoin added, "It won't make a difference anyway. You will be too late to save the castle."
Helios helped the smaller girl up from the ground. She looked at him in stunned amazement. The sorcerer had never had to fight this way in front of her before. An assassin's blade in his hand, he had used his darker spells to win the day. Angry that he had been forced to such straights, the silver dragaoin couldn't stop frowning as he looked at the blue wizard still hovering above them afraid to land near the angry metallic dragaoin.
"Follow us again with another force and you can expect no further mercy, blue."
"I am Xerte, traitor, and I understand. My aim is to save my companions, if you'll let me. You've already killed these other bright lights of the Haileni. I hope no others need to die by your hands this day."
Once more mounted, the three riders moved out from the battle torn clearing heading as quickly as they could for Naermere.
When the jungle's edge was found leading to the slope upon which they would eventually find Catliss Lake, Alec looked behind him at the dark green trees glad to be free of the dangerous place. Shae looked up at him curiously. She had decided to ride behind the younger boy again and had held securely with both hands. With the bumps caused by each footfall of the salamander underneath them, Alec never noticed her shivering after the close call they had suffered.
Her hands had seemed to draw strength from him as they rested against his chest until she moved them to lock around his stomach after a time.
It was strange to the boy. He had been afraid in that fight as well. The white monster of a Z
maj had grabbed him pulling him off of the salamander. His mount had tried to bite the warrior and it had actually just punched the toothy jaws away.
Now Shaelamee was using him as comfort. He knew people well enough and her in particular to understand it. She wasn't that much older than he was in truth and even the few years of experience she had on him wasn't enough to prepare her for that fight.
"How did they manage to find us and get in place like that?" he wondered aloud. "Even if they used wind riding spells to track us, how could they be ready with an ambush as well? We should have outdistanced any of their fastest runners, so they couldn't have possibly known exactly where we were fast enough to also get in the way."
"If they had someone tracking us, a wizard could send a message ahead to a hunting party. It would let them even adjust their positioning well before we could see them," Shaelamee answered as if it should make sense to the boy.
"But a message sent by a bird would be too slow, if it was even possible for it to find a mobile unit," he replied without understanding.
She smiled knowingly before closing her lips tightly. "Can you hear this?" her voice reached him, but she had appeared to say nothing. "This spell can reach someone I know and they can reply as well. Feel free to try without speaking aloud."
"I hear you?" He couldn't reply without questioning the idea of talking to her with just his mind.
Giggling at him, Shaelamee leaned the side of her face against his back for a moment. "It's just more magic, Alec, but I assume that is what they did."
"Try to remain serious, Shaelamee," Helios scolded the girl. "This isn't a game. We need to get back to the castle before it falls."
Frowning back at him, she retorted, "How do we know that they can even get into Naermere? Maybe those wizards are just trying to trick us into going back."
The dragaoin looked uncertain suddenly, though it only lessened his scowl slightly. "If we return, Naermere will be better defended. How would returning to the fort be falling into their hands?"
"Mmmm," she hummed a moment having not expected to be asked such a question.
Alec spoke for her. He was smart enough to see something in the question. "They might be lying about the attack completely and simply tricked us into running back to keep us from moving deeper into that city."
"What might they have wanted to keep from us? We now know that there are wizards working with the hollows to try and make them more intelligent. They are at least shown to be guiding them in some way."
"Stopping us keeps us from finding out. With us gone, they could also move their operation somewhere else.
"On the other hand," Alec added the other thing he had thought about, "we could be the key to them getting inside the fort. They might need us to return to get them to open the door. With magic, they might keep it from shutting again to hit the fort with an army hidden there waiting for us."
The boy shrugged and felt Shaelamee shift to the side to look at him curiously. Helios' face looked both impressed and worried. "So which is more likely?"
"I am just giving you what I could think of as a motive. In the end, the warnings could be true. The blue dragaoin... Xerte... had no reason to speak of the threat. We were already letting them off with their lives, so there was no reason to try to make you angry at them."
The girl spoke up since it had been her worry first, though she had mostly said it to get back at the dragaoin for disciplining her like a child. "Spurring us on might have been safer in his mind. If we thought that we had more time, maybe he worried that we would finish them off instead of leaving quickly."
Sighing at the convoluted questions that would have no answers until they returned to Naermere, Helios turned his face in the direction of the fort. First they would need to pass the lake, however, but it should be a quick trip from here. The jungle was behind them and open ground was the primary topography ahead of them.
At the lake, the three stopped again. While the salamanders took a few minutes to rest, both eating and drinking lakeside; Shaelamee stripped off her lower leg armor and stepped into the water. She remained only a few feet beyond the shore. Small waves lapped at her lower legs while the girl closed her eyes concentrating on pulling the water up her body. The genasi used the time she had to heal her new wounds as much as she could.
There were a few cuts on her arms and legs. Another deeper wound had also been missed by the men in their haste to hurry away. A slash in the lower part of her top, where the white dragaoin's blade had caught her in the fight, was dotted with drops of blood. More of the liquid had trickled down her stomach to stain the belt of the battle skirt. Her ability to control water, including the liquid in her blood, had kept the wound from causing her to bleed out; but Shaelamee was paler than usual.
"Are you alright, Shae?" the boy asked as he refilled their canteens.
"It is just a scratch... well, a little worse than that; but I can heal up with this water. I am fine," she replied without opening her eyes.
Helios joined them after making certain that the salamanders were settled for the moment. He knelt to wash off some blood on his arms and chest. The dragaoin's cloak had a few more tears now as well, but Alec also noticed a few more holes in his own clothing after this trip. Not all had been from fighting hollows and dragon men, the many branches clawing at them as they hurried through the jungle hadn't helped either.
"Are you wounded too, Helios?" the boy asked curiously since the big dragon man didn't seem affected at all physically.
Shaking his head, the silver dragaoin replied, "It isn't mine."
Alec remembered the strange discoloration and the way Helios seemed to grow slightly during some of their battles. "What spell is that which makes you look gray for a time?"
"I draw on the magic inside me to create a barrier that is like adding additional health added to mine. Even if I do get hit, the magic absorbs some of the damage before any cuts actually form on my scales. It is one of my earliest learned spells."
"Is it teachable? That sounds like a good spell to protect me, since it appears that coming here will keep me in danger."
Big, blue eyes looked at the boy a moment before Helios shook his head. "I discovered this one differently than some. Sometimes I learn magic from watching other magic users. This spell is something that just came to me and I have trouble explaining it let alone trying to teach it to someone else."
"Could you teach me to fly then?" Alec tried again hoping this was teachable. He knew of a new magic brought to White Hall by one of the mar'goyn'lya, a gargoyle in his people's legends. A blond haired girl, a close friend of Katya as well, was helping him to teach it. She must have come from the dragon city of Mar'kal, but Alec wasn't certain how she had come to learn dragon mage magic.
Unfortunately as a novice wizard, he hadn't even been allowed to try to learn the magic yet. Katya had though she was just a novice like him. She had watched the new students training on the school's roof and figured out enough that they had taught her the other spells also. It had seemed a little unfair, but he had heard that the head master had made the exception only because the other teachers were worried that the young girl might get injured if they didn't teach her the magic properly.
Again Helios looked uncertainly at the boy. "I learned it watching wizards like the ones we ran into in the jungle. If we had time, I might be able to pass it on to you."
A splash as Shaelamee released her cocoon of water back into the lake caused the two to look at the girl in surprise. Alec noticed that the minor scrapes were already healed. She lifted her top revealing the slightest of scars on her upper stomach.
"It should go away completely with a few more treatments," Shae stated letting the torn cloth drop back down again. Cleaner than before, the top looked like it had been washed. Her belt showed no stains of her blood also.
"That is a handy spell as well," the boy said.
Placing her hands on his shoulder, she looked apologetically at him and said, "This is somethin
g that my people can do. It isn't something that I can teach either. Maybe if you could learn how to control water, there might be something that could translate for you."
Walking back to his mount, Helios ordered, "Come, we had better hurry back. One way or another we'll find out whether those Zmaj lied to me or not."
The younger two glanced at each other even as the dragaoin turned his mount from the grass it was eating towards the north and Fort Naermere.
Following the river towards the next valley, the riders stopped on a rise overlooking the Naeren Valley. There was no sign of a battle or of the hollows outside the fort either.
"It's quiet," Shaelamee said in a hushed tone as if being quiet was mandatory even though only the two men could hear her.
Nodding, Helios added, "If this is the trap, it is a good one. I can't see it, but I think that they might have lied. The outer walls look fine as does Naermere castle. If it had been breached, I would expect smoke or something."
"If all they had to do was kill the others because someone let them in, then there might not be too much damage," Alec stated before using his vision spell. Like an eagle's sight, the young wizard felt his vision improve many times over. As good as the spell was, he still couldn't see the fort well enough to see any warning signs.
Unable to argue the point and unable to see well enough to know the answer, the three hurried their mounts down into the barren looking valley. Naeren had so little life in it. After seeing both the lake area and the jungle beyond it, Alec could guess that this had likely been one of the areas struck hard by the black sand that the others kept talking about.
What had kept the sand from destroying everything else around it? He could see green below the edge of the cliff where the river dropped over it into swamp land also. The others had told him of Boramey's Swamp. A land partially affected by magic and the war, it still looked like it had life unlike the area above it.
Smart Alec in the Dark Lands Page 22