“Good man,” Saul said with a grin. “Do your best, but I don’t think the raptors quite have your scruples. They will probably kill and maim unless you tell them otherwise.”
“Right,” Brand said. “I’ll go fight alongside them, I think, and try to keep them from killing too many people outright if I can. Perhaps you could lend me a Rock Troll or something to help me out? Then I might be able to avoid getting myself killed as well as avoiding killing these others!”
Brand was grinning, his face alive with the pleasure and joy of battle.
Saul summoned a Rock Troll and gave it an Earth combination. The troll manifested as the usual big, tough, stony creature, but the Earth combination made it able to fire blasts of soft earth at enemies, which would get in their eyes and mouths, disabling them without killing them.
Saul instructed the troll to look out for Brand. The rock troll charged into the front line of the attackers, giving Saul and his Squad a moment’s breathing space.
Brand slapped Saul on the shoulder and then hugged Zorea quickly and tightly, kissing her on the edge of the mouth, causing her to blush and then to glare when Saul grinned at her. Then Brand leaped onto the back of the Rock Troll and headed off toward the right flank of the enemy force, keeping to the dense cover of the trees as he went.
Saul and Zorea went in the opposite direction. As they passed round the left side of the enemy force, they heard shouting and the crashing of weapons from Brand’s direction, and roars of great lizards. The raptors had joined up with Brand and the Rock Troll.
Saul glanced in that direction, feeling a stab of doubt. He had smiled at Zorea and Brand’s physical affection for each other, but it struck him that he was risking more than a friend’s life now. He was risking Zorea’s partner as well.
“They’ll be fine,” Zorea reassured him, as if reading his thoughts. “Let’s see to this mage.”
Saul blinked, realizing how strange and out-of-character that thought had been. He was a battle commander and had long ago made peace with the fact that he regularly had to send men to their deaths——yes, men with families, children, people who cared about them.
That was the nature of war. That was the nature of the soldier’s bargain with their commander.
The soldier would fight, and if necessary, die, on the orders of the commander. In return, the commander would not waste lives, and would see to it that no death under his command was in vain.
He furrowed his brow, felt around himself with his magic, and found the tendril of the curse that had reached out to grip him. That was the source of his doubt. As soon as he’d found it, he batted it away as a man might bat away a stinging fly.
Instantly, all doubt left him. Of course, Brand would be fine. Even if the worst happened, Saul would do no one any service by wavering now.
Zorea looked at him questioningly, but he shook his head.
“Let’s go,” he said, and she fell into line beside him.
Together, they slipped round the left flank of the enemy, who were now engaged in fighting Brand and the raptors.
As they moved, Saul quickly spoke about Graxel. “He’s created that illusion back at the pool to make us think that the source of the trouble is the mage from Styllin, but he’s the real source of the power. He’s controlling these humans, forcing them to fight the same way the warlocks’ thralls were forced to fight back at Harkin’s Holdfast.
“I can’t tell what kind of magic he is using,” Saul said, “so I don’t know what kind of enchantment we’re going to need to use to break the curse, but hopefully we’ll be able to find out once we get closer.”
“Do you think breaking the curse will kill him?” she asked.
“I doubt it. It may weaken or severely disorientate him for a time, but it’s unlikely to kill him all at once. But it will remove these humans from the equation. They won’t fight us anymore, and that will make it easier to focus on fighting him.”
In silence now, they moved toward the back of the enemy force until they found a vantage point where they could both see the Graxel.
The trees and thick undergrowth were both a blessing and a curse. They hid Saul and Zorea from view, but also made it hard to see the bearded mage from afar. He was a way behind his soldiers, surrounded by a small bodyguard of large, imposing fighters.
To Saul’s eyes, he looked a very different figure from the plump, easy-going fellow they had seen in the Queen’s audience chamber. There, he’d been all smiles, a rotund, grandfatherly figure with soft hands folded on his generous belly, and the light shimmering off his expensive clothing.
Now, his expression was deathly cold. His eyes sparkled like little chips of flint, and his mouth was set in a grim, straight line. He was dressed in dark chainmail of an ornate and unusual style, with steel gauntlets at his wrists and heavy black leather boots.
A blade glittered in his hand. On his brow, beads of sweat gathered as he exerted the enormous efforts of magic necessary to maintain the control spell.
Saul gazed at him in wonder. Here was a man using the old magic, the magic that was thought to have been entirely lost. Through sheer force of internal resources, it appeared, he was controlling a fighting force nearly two hundred strong.
“There,” Zorea whispered, “I see him now. Wow, he really is the center of the magic. It’s so powerful I am almost getting pulled into it myself.”
She paused for a moment and Saul felt her trying to free herself of the clutches of the curse. For his part, Saul felt it plucking at the edges of his mind and magic, but it did not seem able to get a hold of him after that first time when he’d found himself doubting his choice to send Brand off to fight.
“It’s too strong!” Zorea gasped. “I’m going to have to use a potion.”
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She reached into her inventory for a resist magic potion, one of the ones they had discovered the recipe for only quite recently.
That’s a good idea, he thought. I don’t seem as vulnerable to the curse as Zorea, so she needs it more than I. All the same, I wish I had one to take myself just now. It might make things a bit easier.
Instead, he checked his own inventory. He had mostly healing potions, but there were also a couple that would boost the power of his spells for a short time, and one that was labeled Flaming Doomsphere. He would make sure to use that one before this was over if he had the chance.
As Zorea activated the Resist Magic potion, through her inventory, Saul felt the magic take effect. They were connected through Squad magic, and he could feel the power of the magic she was using just as they could see into each other’s inventories and could each know what the other was doing when they selected magic options.
The effect of the potion flowed through her. Heaviness lifted from her eyes and the grimness her face faded as the foreign magical presence lost its grip.
“That’s better,” she said. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, wait, yes, that really is better. I can see him now. I can see the nature of the spell!”
“Excellent,” Saul whispered. “I still can’t see the nature of the curse. I’m relying on your more finely tuned sense of magic to be able to do that.”
She grinned. “Good thing I’m here, then. The curse he’s using is a Glade spell. I’d never imagined that the Old World magic would have such a clear connection to your modern Schools of Magic, but it’s very clear. It’s a Glade spell, and you’ll need to enchant my Soulstone Sword with Glade to be able to counter it.”
The idea made sense to Saul. He was surprised to find the close relationship between the Old World magic and his own, and yet at the same time it made intuitive sense. The curse was like the wreathing, twisting tendrils of nature; thorn bushes, creeping, choking vines, the insidious poisonous ivy roots that find their way into the mortar between bricks to bring down houses.
It was magic grounded in the principles of nature. So, even the Old World magic must have some connection to what I think of as the Schools of Magic, Saul thought. It’s just not as clear. Of course, magic is the result of the immense power of the natural world. At its core, all magic derives from the same sources.
The same thing, but a different approach.
“Sounds like Graxel is using School of Glade magic with an old world twist,” Saul said. “You’re certain that countering it with Glade magic of our own will work?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “That’s the nature of Old World spells. They are weakest to other spells of their own nature.”
She lifted her blade. “Here, enchant the sword.”
“No,” Saul said. “We must attack first. As soon as we enchant, he’ll see us and know our plan. Let’s get close to him, and at the last moment I’ll enchant your blade.”
“Very well,” she said. “You’re in charge.”
He smiled, nodded once, then activated his Burning Hands spell as he leaped out from his hiding place and charged at Graxel and his bodyguard.
The Burning Hand spell, like all the others, had evolved into a new and more powerful version as Saul had continued leveling up his System. It had always been powerful, but had now grown into a cloak of fire that covered his whole body and did damage to any enemy who even came near him.
He barged into the bodyguard of Graxel, swinging his short Xornian sword in one hand and wielding the streams of deadly flame that came with his spell in the other. He was a terrifying figure as he appeared seemingly out of nowhere into their midst, but to their credit Graxel’s bodyguard stood their ground.
They fought well, but Saul was better, faster, stronger, and driven by an unquenchable thirst for victory. He wanted to finish this, to see the mage Graxel’s blood, and to end the curse that had been laid on Jillin and enslaved its folk.
He swung his burning blade left and right, parrying blows from the outlandish curved swords of the bodyguard soldiers, while taking out any who got too close.
As he fought, his cooldown from the last spellcasting finished, and he cast the Earthquake from the School of Earth into the midst of the enemies he was fighting.
That brings back good memories, he thought with a smile as the spell ripped a miniature earthquake through the ground around him, knocking some of Graxel’s bodyguard soldiers off their feet. A crack opened in the earth at one point a few yards from Saul, and to his delight he found that he could actually manipulate it.
He moved it slightly to the left and then let it yawn wide. Two of the big, heavily armored bodyguards fell into the hole, and Saul let it snap closed over them. There was no trace of them.
“What are you?” Graxel hissed. “Some Old World mage of Keldor? How is it that you cast spells without channelers?”
“I’m no Old World mage, Graxel,” Saul growled as he dispatched the last of the bodyguard with a swift thrust from his blade and a punch from his flaming left fist. “I’m a different kind of mage altogether.”
Out of the periphery of his vision, he saw Zorea moving up from his blind side. She came in low and fast, her eyes fixed on Graxel, her Soulstone blade in her hand. The El-Alun mage was so focused on Saul that he did not even see her.
He darted forward, the long straight sword in his hand reminding Saul surprisingly of the design of Zorea’s Soulstone blade. It was similar in shape and size, and it gleamed with a strange white radiance that made him feel certain it was imbued with some magical essence.
Saul closed with him, parried two fast strikes from his blade, then conjured a Mud Golem with his left hand, giving the golem a School of Fire combination. The golem flowed up from the mud, flames flickering around it, and immediately raised its hands and sent a blast of fire at Graxel.
The mage leaped back at the sight of the golem, and he held the sword up. A crackling shield of energy, flickering blue, purple, and white like fork lighting, flickered out from the sword’s blade and defended Graxel from the blast.
Saul’s eyes met Zorea’s. She held up her blade, and Saul created the Glade spell, combined with the Enchant Weapon spell. He fired his spell straight at Zorea’s sword, and the blade soaked up the enchantment like water into dry earth.
Zorea leapt forward. The golem fired another blast, and at the same time Saul used Inferno, sending a jet of flame of his own toward Graxel.
The mage dodged to the side, but his eyes were focused on the Soulstone blade.
“It cannot be,” he gasped. “What is this? You wield the legendary blade of Kenzai, the Soulstone blade that won the Battle of Emyrn in the ancient depths of the past! Those blades were all destroyed in the great reckoning. But those blades were all lost. I am their heir to the power of the Old World, not you!”
“No one will save you now!” Zorea hissed. “I’m the heir to the Light of the Old World, and your spells of Darkness will perish from existence on the edge of my blade.”
But she did not strike at him. Instead, Zorea darted backward and seemed to be feeling in the air with the point of her blade.
Graxel, clearly afraid of the Soulstone Sword, had backed off, but now he seemed to realize what she was doing.
His eyes widened. “Nooo!” he yelled, panicking.
But she found what she was looking for. Saul could see it, a black tangle like the root-threads of some hideous, malformed plant, all stretching out from the very center of Graxel’s chest.
With one mighty slash, Zorea brought her blade down and sheared through the nest of darkness.
The force of the magic’s dispersal was immense.
It was as if a huge chain under unimaginable tension had been snapped. The breaking of the magic sent a shockwave thundering out of Graxel.
Zorea, apparently anticipating this, had ducked to the ground. Saul leaned into the force and felt the System buffering him against the power. He was not knocked over, but the trees around him cracked and split, and many of the smaller bushes were uprooted and flung backward.
Graxel himself fell to his knees as if he had been skewered through the heart, blood pouring from his nose and ears, and his eyes rolling back in his head. He hung on his knees and then toppled forward insensible to the ground.
Saul turned. The honor guard were all dead by Saul’s hand, but the battle was still raging on some way away, the controlled townsfolk fighting with the raptors and with Brand.
Or at least it had been.
A strange silence lingered in the wood after the shockwave.