Daniel

He scanned their foes, marking those he recognized. Ansbach on the wall, Kleodora on the ground, and Praxithea in a Water cave. They wouldn’t have to fight anyone on Goldie’s level if his hunch connecting a mage’s Runed garments to their power was correct. All their opponents were limited to gloves, except one Fire and one Lightning mage on the wall also wearing boots. Those two could be trouble.

While Wendi and Wendigo occupied the Black Dog behind them, Lea, Paul, and Kenta formed the front line with Daniel in the rear. He wanted to stand at the fore but forced himself to focus on the plan.

The Wolf peered down from atop the wall, the Bear sat on the rimed floor, and Verglas reined from his Ice throne. Everything hinged on keeping these three distracted.

“Daniel, you have one job tomorrow,” Cassie had said. “Don’t waste energy on anything else. You’re fighting Verglas.”

The Ice mage watched these opening moves from his throne, but there was no telling when or how the man in white armor would act. He reached for something, and Daniel tensed, but he merely drew one glowing yellow ring among the armory arrayed against them.

The weapons were Letter constructs—three-dimensional mosaics with thousands of unique interlocking puzzle pieces. Each weapon had a Taotie mask embedded in its center mass covering its Mani core visible through translucent tiles tinted a homogeneous color. All of the weapons were assembly line identical by type, except Verglas’ sword.

Eleven green spears and twelve rings launched in the first volley.

The self-propelled spears slid through the air almost like fish with unerring, heart-seeking precision. Caramboles converged to crush a spear aimed at Lea. For a moment, it seemed the green spear would slip through and strike her, but the combined pull of the caramboles held it in place. A second spear skidded off a carambole and curved midflight of its own volition back at Lea.

Kenta caught it in his hair inches before impact.

The green spear glided through several feet of hair, cutting many strands before slowing enough for Kenta to entangle. The Kaminoke’s twining threads blocked one spear coming for his heart and grabbed a spear headed for Daniel as well. It was a nearer thing than Kenta would’ve cared to admit.

Since the green spears were faster, mages released the yellow rings first so the two weapon types would arrive at almost the same time. Several of them headed Kenta’s way were trapped by his hair and crushed. Lea used her caramboles’ attraction to pin her rings and smash them between colliding black orbs.

Daniel watched Paul in amazement.

With a flick of his wrist, Paul made everything look easy. The lantern boy snatched two whistling green spears out of the air with perfect reflexes. Then he flipped them around, return to sender. While a clever idea, the smith who’d made the weapons had thought of it first. Their Mani cores extinguished after a dozen more feet of flight. They dropped, lifeless, and the energy constructs disintegrated.

They were one-use items.

Yellow rings were mosquitoes to Paul and no more dangerous. Whenever one dove towards him, a slight movement of his arm or torso frightened them away.

High above, Cassie shifted to girl form as two spears whizzed by centimeters from her skin. A pair of well-placed kicks from her long claws shattered the approaching yellow rings, and one mighty flap launched her soaring higher as she returned to giant bat.

“Don’t forget the frog!” the Stone mage beside Kleodora shouted.

Cassie had told them to expect this, but Daniel felt nonetheless jarred having his attention unwillingly pulled to Rana—transparent as glass while Camouflaged. Based on Cassie’s Forecast, the frog girl wouldn’t have an easy time. Slime protected her feet now, but not forever against the unrelenting, energy-draining, magical Ice.

Worse, the cold killed any spy frogs she placed on the ground, eliminating her Clair-like battle reflexes from their first fight with the mages. Green spears chased the quick and agile slick-slime skater at unbelievable speeds. She threaded her body through the narrow space between two spears with a flip and twirl, though they drew blood with shallow cuts to her upper arm and side.

The cuts didn’t regenerate; a Toadstone took more than three nights to grow. The trickle of blood made tracking her that much easier.

Then a yellow ring grabbed her foot midair and held it high. Rana would soon be swarmed by mage attacks while stuck dangling upside-down from one leg. Instead, she swung her other leg around and, dropping the heel as a hammer, broke the ring at the cost of injuring her foot. Falling in a heap, Rana jackknifed up onto her slimed feet again as her skin sizzled against the Ice anti-griddle. Anywhere exposed flesh had touched the cold ground, Daniel saw frostbite blisters.

“Don’t forget the frog!” an azure-gloved water mage shouted from the wall as they traced Rana’s movements with a pointer finger.

Daniel didn’t notice a ring’s approach until it slipped onto his wrist. It’d gotten around the others and flanked him. Pulling away on instinct, Daniel learned that was a bad idea. The jerking motion almost dislocated his shoulder. His arm may as well have been set in concrete; the old Daniel would’ve been a sitting duck.

New Daniel had the Strength of Samson. He clamped his other hand on the ring and squeezed. The hard-light Lettering shattered in his superhuman grip.

Had the mages misused their weapons? Why not wait until during the middle of the battle? Then again, this forced the kids to expose their abilities and limitations early on.

The ferocious beasts—a mad assortment of animal parts shuffled together—lumbered forward. There were thirty on the ground alone, no bigger than tigers or bulls but driven mad by starvation. Some stalked the kids’ flanks while others charged heedless of the draining Ice in their desperation.

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All according to plan.

“The Wolf and Bear aren’t interested in fighting weak opponents,” Cassie had explained, “The Wolf will attack Daniel or Rana unless someone gets its attention. Meanwhile, the Bear will watch for the strongest one on the ground—whoever takes out the most beasts.”

The giant bat ascended into the sky, appearing to abandon her friends. Seeing Cassie’s flight awakened the need to chase in the winged beasts and mages on the wall.

Lea and Kenta fought to protect Daniel, crushing anything that came near with wrecking ball caramboles and car-sized fists of hair.

Meanwhile, Paul took the field, running into the center of the melee. The beasts obliged him, converging on the lantern boy to overrun him with claws and teeth and beaks and horns.

With one hand, Paul grabbed the first beast’s slavering maw and shot a point-blank blast of light into its throat. The creature’s eyes shone, and it slumped to the ground, ears expelling foul smoke. Paul twisted his body left, pumping his elbow into a bird beast’s face—shattering its beak—then shifted his feet and thrust his palm to shoot a ray into the crocodile mouth of another. As its guts cooked, he kicked a pouncing mole-tiger and broke every rib in its body.

Paul didn’t fight like a dancer, lacking fluidity. He didn’t fight like a martial arts master, lacking experience, or a berserker, lacking zealotry, or even a boxer, lacking form. Paul fought like a robot. Accurate, precise, and devastating. Every efficient movement killed a beast or positioned him to fight the next as if Paul had perfect knowledge of his surroundings.

More eyes fell on Paul as he cleaved through the ranks of beasts. Three Water mages in the wall, two Stone on the ground, the Bear, and the Wolf all grew interested. Even Verglas might have struck at him if Cassie hadn’t stolen the stage.

She had a veritable train of enemies on her tail as she rocketed straight up. The dozens of flying beasts looked for all the worlds like the missing link between pterodactyls and chickens. Lightning mages rode flying mounts, scarlet mages propelled themselves with streamers of Fire, and Wind mages leaped on floating footholds as if weightless. Yet, her pursuers were crows chasing a sparrow with Cassie in bat girl form.

She evaded jets of flame, bolts of Lightning, sharp beaks, and even faced the balls of compressed Wind that had defeated her in the previous battle. Back then, she’d had six passengers as baggage. Now she switched between great bat for bursts of speed and bat girl form for agility without worry. When she burst the Wind orbs with her claws, the thin air blades that once shredded her delicate wings could only slice papercuts into her legs.

Up and up, she rose above the battlefield until her pursuers aligned in a funnel beneath her. At the apex of her ascent, Cassie spun on her attackers and shifted to great bat form. The midair mages saw their mistake in the suspended moment of her deep inhalation. The beasts were too stupid and hungry to flee while the humans darted in every direction.

Cassie unleashed a cataclysmic shriek.

Her mouth expelled a cone of devastation that enveloped the flock of beasts. The pressure wave rolled over them, crushing bodies but weakening as it spread. Its force splashed across the Ice below, reduced to a breeze at that distance. The inescapable, earsplitting noise made everyone flinch—except perhaps Verglas and the Elementals.

The crumpled figures of the flying beasts crashed to the arena floor like squashed bugs where their starving kin devoured their broken bodies.

The White Wolf leaped into the air, its prey chosen, climbing on an invisible slope of solidified Wind beneath each paw step. Every mage’s eye followed Cassie’s descent; all but Verglas, who watched Paul dispose of the last few beasts with any fight left in them.

The Ice mage’s free hand reached for one of his frozen pillars. With a crack, the Ice sickle slid across the frozen plain toward the lantern boy.

Daniel lifted his arm, words echoing in his ears.

“Don’t try to beat him!—He’s too powerful,” Cassie had told him.

“But Ice is a methodical, patient Element by nature,” Rana added.

Agreeing, Cassie had continued, “Right, he can’t attack faster than you. If you concentrate on countering his moves and nothing else, you can Shut. Him. Down.”

He didn’t punch. He wasn’t Persephone shooting concentrated bursts of Ruin with a shouted ‘kiai.’ He didn’t throw a curveball. He didn’t need to. Instead, Daniel opened his fist, and his projected hand caught the pillar.

The Ice sickle halted with a huge handprint imprinted on its surface. Verglas pushed with his magic, and Daniel’s projection gave ground. Then the pillar stopped again as Daniel exerted his power. The Ice mage gritted his teeth, the snowflake Rune on his gauntlet surging with magic in a bid to show dominance. Except, this time, all Verglas’ struggling amounted to nothing.

Daniel had learned something while training under the mountain. His Strength of Samson applied to his projections!

He squeezed, and a web of cracks spread through the pillar.

Despite the remote connection, Daniel felt the Ice draining the energy of his projection into a fathomless empty pit. He couldn’t let that stop him from protecting Paul. Daniel squeezed, and the more he focused, the stronger he became until, finally—the Ice shattered.

Crushing the Ice came at a considerable cost to Daniel’s reserves, ramming an icepick migraine into his skull. He wouldn’t last long at this rate. Daniel was a child, and this wizard might have centuries of practice.

Applying his strength wasn’t the only thing he’d learned under the mountain. He needed to recoup his expenses. He needed Catharsis.

Daniel pictured himself in Verglas’ place, imagined the mage’s ego, and looked on these impudent Wilding upstarts.

Purpose: easy, Verglas had grown the Ice to show his dominance.

Intent: Verglas wanted to subdue Paul to capture and sell him into slavery.

Will: Verglas was determined to win, no matter who he hurt.

Then Daniel felt the icepick melt. By ruining Verglas’ attack, he fed on the white wizard’s broken plans and rejuvenated himself. In Eastwood, human structures had been easy to comprehend, and his magic refund came naturally. When fighting Tesem, he must’ve failed to appreciate the Black Dog’s perspective and goals. This time, Daniel successfully understood the Ice mage and tapped into his enemy’s power.

Verglas turned his beautiful face on Daniel and glared murder.

At the same time, the Bear stepped forward. At last, the creature of Stone acknowledged an opponent as its worthy adversary. Paul.

The true battle began. And it wasn’t Daniel, Paul, or Cassie who needed to win. As the bat girl had said, “While the Elementals and Verglas are occupied, Lea and Kenta will escape. If they make it past the wall, that’s two fewer people for me to carry over—and, if you beat any mages on your way, that’s fewer bozos taking shots at me.”

Kenta and Lea charged the wall together, staying close. The Kaminoke pulled himself forward with strands of hair while Lea levitated on caramboles. Verglas and the Bear were too intent on their prey to stop them, the remaining beasts were eating carrion, and the mages were so distracted by Cassie that the pair reached the wall by the time anyone noticed.

Two Stone mages on the platform blocked their way.

“Don’t forget…” Kleodora began, then trailed off.

The bodybuilder ochre mage turned to her and asked, “What were we supposed to remember?”

The answer came with a dropkick as Rana emerged from Camouflage to attack. Surprised, if not off-balance, the mages rallied their defenses. The Stone mages tore chunks from the wall to shield against globs of slime, punches, and kicks, but couldn’t stop Lea and Kenta without creating an opening for Rana. Keeping two Stone mages preoccupied by dodging in and out of Camouflage would be a piece of cake for the slightly wounded frog girl.

With a hundred feet to climb, Lea and Kenta scaled the first twenty without interference. Then Daniel lost track of everyone else.

Surviving Verglas would take everything he had.