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Hecate awoke with a start as someone crashed through her front door. She looked across the room as she lay there. It was Obit, his breath heavy and his eyes open wide as he stood silhouetted by the moonlight that fell through the door behind him.
She glanced up, noticing with relief that Refenial was starting to stir. At least whatever madness had brought Obit here so dramatically hadn't involved her other apprentice.
"T-this better be important, idiot child, or this will be the night I kill you." She said, instantly regretting letting her annoyance at being woken so suddenly in the middle of the might get the better of her.
"There are monsters outside the village. There's hundreds of them, thousands. It's an army of them!" Obit declared, his eyes somehow opening even wider.
She slowly heaved herself into a sitting position, her bones crunching with age as she did. She was careful to keep the pain of the movement from her face.
Villagers had surrounded the door, A few carrying torches whose light streamed into her tiny abode. They were talking in confused but worried tones, clearly as unsure as her of what to make of the boy's warnings.
Fetch my sticks, boy." She said to Refenial. They had fallen out of reach near the bed, and she didn't want the villagers to see how much she would struggle to reach them. Thankfully the boy diligently obeyed. "Come here." She told Obit. The boy rushed towards her.
As he did so, she considered her options. She had so little power left, she couldn't waste a drop on a false alarm, but she would need to act if there were monsters. She looked Obit in his green eyes as he stood before, so she sought any hint of deception or delusion on the young boy's face as she asked, "Is what you said the absolute truth?"
"Yes." The boy replied with an unusual degree of sombre certainty.
It was settled in her mind at that moment as she released more mana from maintaining the enchantment that gave her life, releasing it so her magic could lift her up and move her body free from the weaknesses of her old flesh.
As she began to float towards her door, she heard cries of alarm in the distance as villagers confirmed the boy's message. "Move back", She snarled at the villagers, using her magic to enhance her voice to cover it from its aged, shaking quality. The Villagers rushed to obey, quickly clearing a path out of her home.
She began casting as she moved, and as she reached outside, she finished and poured mana into the spell form, allowing her to fly upwards rapidly the moment she floated outside.
She looked down as she shot up. Despite the moonlight, it was too dark for her ancient eyes to clearly understand what was happening. She let her life slip away slightly more as she created a spell form for orbs of light similar to the one she had shown Refenial but much brighter and much more in number. As she worked to complete the spell, she heard a crash and screaming, but she focused on the task. As the last mote of mana fell into the spell form, orbs of light sprang forth in every direction, lighting the night of the forest to daylight for miles around.
Hecate looked down at the village. It was much, much worse than she could have imagined.
She cursed silently to herself. She knew something was after Refenial, that it had sent the wolf. She should have fled after the attack. She should have pushed the boy harder and made him stronger faster. She should have given Obit the damn sword. Even now, just the thought of letting go of the sword and her childhood dream pained her. She loathed sentimentality clouding reason, yet she had allowed sentimentality to get the better of her when it came to the sword, and she would pay for her sin.
A tidal wave of monsters surrounded the village crushing at its walls as they crumbled under the onslaught. Already the village gate lay in ruins carved open by a monstrous deer.
There was another crash, and then another and another as monsters ripped the wall down.
She considered fleeing but to where? To what? She had so little power left. Tonight would be a gamble. She was so weak now that she doubted she could stand without magic, even using both canes. No, she had a slim chance, her apprentices, Refenial and the idiot child. They both had the potential for real power. Perhaps she could use that and leverage it in some way. She didn't have any plans for that, but she could work that out later when the battle was over. She had another problem first. She needed to make sure they survived the night.
She released the enchantment still further as she began to assault the monsters below with a bombardment of magical attacks.
The attacks sowed confusion and chaos amongst the monsters taking out several of the larger ones. This would only buy a little time as she searched the chaos of fighting below, ignoring the new monsters that constantly streamed in.
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She spotted Obit first. He was standing there, lost in the madness and confusion of battle. Finding her target, she summoned her copper blade and quickly dropped down until she was only a few feet above him. "Obit!" She called out, using magic once more to make her voice heard above the madness. The boy swung around, startled, the stick in his hand raised as if he was about to strike her down.
She let go of the sword in her hand. She let go of Un. Giving it up felt like an admission of failure, but she would survive today, and if her childhood dreams were all she had to sacrifice, then that was the price she would pay. The sword fell to the ground near its true master and sliced into the ground, standing upright, handle in the air.
Take the sword, find Refenial, tell him..." As she spoke, she saw several villagers almost entirely overrun by monsters, and she released a quick barrage of magic towards them, buying the villagers a little more time. "Tell him that you both need to go to the ruins now. He'll understand what it means. I will watch from above and protect you as you go."
The Obit's face scrunched up sadly. "No! I won't leave my family behind."
She inwardly cursed at the idiot child as she looked around the battlefield. From her vantage point, she could see much further than Obit. she could see his mother lying on the ground as she weakly struggled against a pack of monsters that were biting into her. Many of the other villagers were also dead, dying or soon would be. She didn't have the time, mana or patience to reason with the boy. To convince the fool to do what he needed to survive
"There's no time. I'll protect them. I'll protect everyone here, but you need to hurry." She lied, hoping that the boy would forgive her in time.
Obit nodded, grabbed the sword and ran off.
She flew back up, careful not to lose him, as she saw him run to Refenial.
She looked away momentarily and saw the villagers were losing badly. She needed them to buy more time and released wave after wave of attack onto the monsters below. She made sure in the process to clear a path for the pair of children. She saw Refenial and Obit running towards a gap in the wall and, with a last barrage, destroyed the monsters between them and freedom.
She hung there in the sky, her magic and life nearly depleted. Death and carnage ripped hungrily through the villagers below. She waited, though, waited as long as she dared and hoped the children would make it to the ruins in time. She floated above the massacre until only a few villagers remained. One by one, villagers were overrun by the horde and fell screaming and bloodied to the mass of devouring monsters. The monsters made no destruction in their relentless attack, man or woman, child, adult, or elder, no quarter given, no mercy allowed. The snow was red and slick with the blood of the fallen village.
If she didn't stop this army of monsters here today, she wouldn't have the strength to do it tomorrow. It had to die if she was to live. It all had to die. She released all but the last tiny sliver of her enchantment. For that brief moment, power flowed through her and for the first time in hundreds of years, she felt something close to her true strength. She cancelled the spell lighting the forest and village and directed her mana elsewhere.
The spell form she began to weave was far from her favourite. She'd always preferred others, even among similar spells, finding this one crude and distasteful. What it lacked in refinement, it made up for in raw power.
She looked down at the villagers as the mana finished flowing into the spell. Only three remained, and one of them, Obit's father, looked up at her. His wide eyes stared through her with the haunted horror of a man who had lost everything. His face was disconcertingly calm, as if his soul had already departed to join his family even while his body still lived.
"I'm sorry." She whispered too softly for the man to hear. This was one more death that she'd remember for a long time.
The spell was completed, and the world went white.
All senses left her for a long moment as the spell's protections guarded her against the inferno of mana.
When her senses returned, she found herself in a bank of smoke that she quickly flew out of. Beneath her, the village was gone, replaced by a deep crater. The horde assaulting it was also completely gone, vaporized along with the villagers.
The village wasn't the only thing missing, though, for miles around the forest was in ruins, the trees nearest reduced to nothing more than splinters and smouldering ash, but even in the distance, she could see great oaks laying on their sides ripped from the ground like blades of grass.
Her mana was near gone, only the dregs of the dregs remaining. She put it all into the spell that gave her flight and quickly flew towards the ruins.
[https://i.imgur.com/oMrGBK6.png]
She hoped the boys had reached it, knowing its magic would protect them. A cold sliver of fear sat in her chest as she worried they might not have made it.
She quickly found the menhirs, the only things still standing in the now desolate wasteland. She flew through and was relieved to see both boys standing there, their mouths still agape as they looked at the destruction around them.
With the last of the magic in the flight spell, she drifted over to the stone table and lay gently upon it.
Both boys approached her, Obit running, Refenial more slowly as he watched the ground beneath his feet.
"Wow! Did you make that happen, Old Mother Hecate? That was amazing! I bet all the monsters are dead. Did the village get damaged? I bet Daddy will be cross that all those monsters were running all over his fields." Obit asked as he stared at her with wide-eyed amazement.
Old Mother Hecate looked at him and sighed, "I-idiot child."
"Where's everyone else? Will they be coming here too?" the boy asked, a smile forming remarkably quickly on his face after the horrors he'd just witnessed.
Refenial finally reached them, looking down at her. "Are you ok?" he asked, pausing for a moment before he turned to Obit. "I think that took a lot out of her. She probably needs to rest before we talk to her."
"Oh, of course! I thought she was old before, but now she's really, really, really. rea-" Obit paused mid-sentence as a crow flew into the ruins and alighted on one of the crumbling pillars. K-kaw, k-kaw. The crow cried before it stood straight and unmoving.
"S-shit", Hecate swore, realizing what message the bird was giving.
"D-don't trust her." She said in a loud whisper that was all her body could manage. Refenial glanced at her, his face confused, but Obit didn't seem to hear the warning.
Hecate watched as her mother stepped through the space between the Menhirs and into the ruins.
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