The only thought going through her head as she walked was that maybe if she killed that damned orc, he’d drop the light show and they could all go back to doing what they had before. Fighting like real warriors, face-to-face and blade against blade. This much magic made her hackles rise, and she didn’t have to say she didn’t like it—it showed on every inch of her face.
“What are you doing?” Karn shouted at her.
“Ending this!” she said as she loped forward, trying to gain an advantage on the orc, even as the enemy stared up, stupefied at the light show.
Sara looked around in disgust. They were like sheep, blind and vulnerable. As she raised her blade to kill off an idiot, she halted as she got a good look in his eyes. It wasn’t rapt attention that met her gaze—it was glazed-over adoration.
“What is going on?” Sara shouted.
She looked back to Karn for an answer, only to realize he hadn’t actually left his post. She stared hard at him, but he had the same look on his face that the others did. Hesitantly, Sara paced over and waved a hand in his face. Only when she got close enough to touch him did he snap out of it.
As if she had snuck up on him out of nowhere, he jumped back with a yelp and brought his pole up in a defensive mode. That was enough for Sara to realize this was no ordinary magical wave. It was affecting them all. Everyone was in some kind of mental haze. It was spooky.
She too had felt it, but for some reason it hadn’t incapacitated her.
“Where’d you come from?” Karn shouted at the same time as she spoke.
“Karn, his magic is more than what we can see!” she yelled desperately.
“What?” the burly warrior snapped.
“His magic,” she growled. “The light, the flames, the fire. It’s just…just… I don’t know; it’s like a distraction. Everyone here is entranced.”
Karn looked around hesitantly, trying to verify what she said. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he saw it was true: no one was moving, no one was advancing. They were all just watching.
“You’re not. I’m not,” he said stubbornly after a moment.
“You were,” she said flatly.
“But you weren’t,” he said.
She shrugged. “Looks like not.”
“But how is that even possible?” he asked—flabbergasted. “An inferni master does one thing and one thing only, controls those blasted fire demons, so what gives?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t track with what I learned in my admittedly brief lessons on magical theories either. He shouldn’t have mind-bending magic.”
Karn growled. “This just keeps getting worse and worse.”
“Well, at least he can’t turn it on all of us,” Sara Fairchild said while feeling slightly guilty she was saying anything at all. He was technically on her side after all, a member of the imperial armed forces through-and-through, she was sure of it.
“Maybe that has something to do with your magic,” he said. “Can’t distract a battle mage on the field of battle.”
Sara had the feeling he was right, though she wasn’t going to say so. Talking about her gifts and what it meant for her future made her uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t actively drawing on her well of magic at all. She only used it when absolutely necessary, and she was in mortal peril. Fighting a few clumsy warriors didn’t count as mortal peril. The dragons that were hunkered down placidly as sheep in a field, however, were another matter—that was, if she got close enough.
She eyed them closely as a potential course of action developed in spurts in her mind.
As she carefully crafted her path forward, she heard Karn barely holding back a loud yawn.
“Tired?” Sara asked out of the corner of her mouth.
“Suddenly I can barely keep my eyes open,” he groused. “This sucks.”
Sara shook her head as she asked, “Does it help if I’m nearby?”
“Only so much,” he admitted. “I can feel this…this slumber overcoming me even as I stand here. It’s hard to fight it.”
“Then don’t,” Sara said. “Conserve your energy because when you’re released, so will all the others.”
Karn was silent for a moment.
“And while I’m sleeping my life away where will you be troublemaker?” he asked.
Sara shrugged artlessly. “I could tell you but it’s only the faintest of ideas yet.”
Karn asked, “Does it involve you using this spell or whatever to slaughter everyone in sight and get us the hell out of here?”
“Maybe,” Sara said.
“Do it,” he said decisively as he gripped his pole weapon lengthwise. “I’ll just wait here for this fugue to dissipate and pick up the pieces.”
“You do that,” Sara muttered as she moved off, eyes already set on her closest prey like a hunter on the prowl.
Extending her mental awareness around her for individuals coming up behind her, which she really didn’t need to do, she found Karn settled back into his stance: weapons ready and mind blank, in the fugue state. Just as before. Just as all of those surrounding them were.
Satisfied that he was fine and she’d found her mission, she tucked that thought away and went to work.
But she didn’t have as long as she thought. She’d only been able to slice the throats of seven unlucky fighters before the mage who had had garnered all their attention let loose his creation. She knew that magic, after all, could only be gathered for so long before it was loosed, but she’d at least been hoping to kill a good even dozen before he released the wolf he’d been holding back to start its prowl.
As it was, Sara didn’t have time to do much more than raise her sword ineffectually as she watched the magic blast forth from the man she had improperly labeled inferni master. She now knew he was so much more.
This time, his magic wasn’t gentle. It was the gentle vapor that wrapped you in a mindless fog, empty of reasoning. No, this one had impact. She felt the wave of magic as it gripped her and then physically tossed her aside like a rag doll in the winds. Her body went one way, her sword went the other. It was drop it or watch the blade pierce Reben, who went flying past her. Sara chose to save her comrade, losing her weapon in the process.
As she flew through the air, Sara also saw something curious. The dragons. The dragons were fleeing as they rose into the sky on stunted but working wings. Then she hit the packed earth and could think of nothing but the stunning pain in her temple and the darkness threatening to overtake her.
When she rose again, black spots in her eyes, wondering briefly if she had actually lost consciousness, she looked around in dismay. The silence that had hit them all after that blast of magic leveled the playing field had her ears ringing as she struggled to get any sense of perception from where she lay on the ground. Everyone had been felled. Some permanently.
As she stood up on shaky feet and tried to unclog her ears so that she could hear, she felt wetness. Uncomprehending, Sara dipped her fingertips in her ears and brought them around to her face. Blood, bright red, glistened on her fingertips, and Sara looked around in awe.
Everyone’s ears were bleeding, probably shattered by the sheer force of the blast.
Karn was grimacing as his nose gushed more blood, and Sara was absurdly grateful she wasn’t hurt worse.
“Where’s the hobbled mage?” she cried out as she looked around at the devastation.
Marx walked over to her with a grim shake of his head. “Gone. He was a sacrifice.”
Suddenly, Sara understood. She understood why she and her team had fought alone against the wave of Kade invaders, only a lone Red Lion regiment and their brave, hobbled mage by her side.
“We all were,” she said as her fist tightened by her side.
Another strike against her, their, broken leadership. But one that couldn’t be settled now.
All the orcs were gone. Pulverized.
All the dragons were gone. The lucky ones had taken to the air and flown away. The few who hadn’t, who had stayed loyal to their leaders, had been pulverized as well.
That left a devastated human leadership to face those left behind.
Moments, but what felt like hours later, there were groans all around as human warriors on both sides stood and assessed their standing.
Some of the Kades directed especially hateful glares at Sara. She glared right back and assumed that perhaps they hadn’t been as oblivious as Karn to the goings-on around them. Which was an interesting distinction, but nothing she could really wrap her head around right now.
Suffice it to say, they knew that she had killed several of their people when they’d been most vulnerable, and she couldn’t care less. War was war. They’d had the advantage before, and now they didn’t.
The playing field was a little more even, though she was still hoping for reinforcements from the surrounding camp that would make her side overwhelming. She wasn’t going to waste time wondering where they were when it was quite clear she was about to be neck-deep in another pitched battle, but that didn’t make the resentment simmering under the surface of her mind any easier to bear.
When this was over, she would get her answers. As she looked around at the ragtag group of mercenaries and her people, she knew they all would be looking for answers. Fierce pride lined most faces, tiredness others, and all were grabbing whatever weapons lay near where they had landed. No one was quite sure how this would end—magic had wreaked some terrible devastation on both sides, after all. The Kades had shown up with living magic in the form of dragons, which had massacred their ranks with snapping jaws and fire-breathing roars, and as for her side—a single, brave mage with a hobble had turned the tide in their favor by destroying almost every single non-human the Kades had brought to the field.
A fine piece of magic, that. Sara knew they would do him proud now. Though she couldn’t force away the tiny bit of hope that reinforcements might be on the way. That they wouldn’t have to do this alone. She counted twenty-two with the colors of the mercenaries or the empress’ soldiers on her side. There were at least the same number remaining on the Kades, thanks to her handiwork in decapitating several of their human members in their fugue states.
As the Kades picked up swords and faced her down with murderous intentions on their faces, she settled into the knowledge that she was sure of what wasn’t going to happen—not today—reinforcements. Because if there was one thing she’d learned in service to the crown, nothing ever went as she’d hoped, and getting effectual backup was a pipe dream.
That was all right, though.
She picked up her sword that she’d lost on the way down and faced them head-on. She was her own backup.
As Reben stepped up to Sara’s side, bow patched and ready, she said with a bitter laugh, “Guess we’re back to holding the line against overwhelming odds.”
“I guess so,” Sara said dryly as she raced past Reben and Karn for an enemy she had an eye on. The battle had begun.
She ended up near Ezekiel Crane, who, she saw with an approving smile, was more than holding his own. He had a body-sized shield standing up and was hunkered down, firing arrow after arrow into the knees, shins, and legs of surprised enemies. The others took advantage of Ezekiel’s helpful desire to handicap their opponents by quickly killing them off. Over and over again it happened, and over and over again Sara danced in to fight, dancing back to Ezekiel’s side when necessary.
She never gave up her position for long, and they all more than held theirs—in a way, making this a stalemate, neither side giving up their position. The Kades: a defense of their portal and any chance of advancement. Sara’s people: a cordon blocking off the Kades from killing them off, lowering the new shield, sweeping into the camp, and discovering their prize.
As she sweated, blood still dripping from her ears, Sara shook her head with impatience as her swords flashed in the night, deflecting blows and piercing bodies almost automatically. After a while, she realized they were getting nowhere. As many as she killed, the Kades came back with more. New, fresh reinforcements. Human ones, but formidable still. With a frustrated growl, she pushed back toward the group, taking Ezekiel with her as he fell back behind her and only occasionally fired off an arrow toward their front. Surrounded by her companions, she let herself hang back and gave herself permission to just think for a moment, after doing nothing but stay in the fray for what had felt like eternity. She fought some, and others had only taken their place when they fell. Sara didn’t like that, it was no way to win a war, and, as if sensing that she needed time to contemplate, the others stood in front of her, forming a half-ring to give her a bit of a break from swinging her swords. If not because she needed rest, but at least for contemplation. To think up a plan to get them all out of here and to get to Nissa Sardonien, the sun mage, before the Kades got to her first.
It wasn’t long before the leader of the Kade invasion forces called a halt and walked forward. Sara watched him warily, wondering what he had to say.
The Kade leader looked over them all with a semi-approving look.
“You band of fools has more than held your own,” he finally said. “You’ve done your empress proud.”
“Our empress,” shouted one of the soldiers Sara didn’t know, but she didn’t disagree.
The Kade leader gave the woman soldier a dismissive glance. “Yours. We’ve long since absolved ourselves of all loyalty to the crown that you still serve like dogs.”
Marx came up to Sara’s side and said, “I’d rather be loyal to the crown than serve the Kades like traitors.”
The Kade leader cocked his head to the side as he said, “You know what? I believe you would, but I didn’t come here to debate loyalties with you. Now step aside and let us go about our business.”
Karn laughed. “Does that line actually work with anyone with balls?”
The Kade leader gave him a cold look. “I wouldn’t know, since none of you have any. First riding out our attack behind a rock, and then letting your poor, pitiful mage sacrifice himself in one last, noble stand while we stood unaware.”
“Enough,” Sara called out. “You attacked us. You don’t get to take the high ground here.”
The man they were all facing down shrugged. “Fair enough. Still, we will win. So why don’t you all lay down your weapons and move along?”
Ezekiel Crane came up to Sara’s shoulder then and said in a disbelieving whisper, “Is he serious or just insane?”
Shrugging Sara Fairchild replied, “Maybe a little of both?”