A wave of nausea and darkness hit Lukas Merveillo, and he fell. When he came to, he found himself lying flat on his back, his head protruding off the edge of the rampart walkway, the muscles of his neck and shoulders sore. His head pounded like a drum. His arms and legs both felt a hundred times heavier than before, their movements sluggish, difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.

Pulling his head back to safety, Lukas shifted to one knee, then tried to stand only to that his legs did not have the strength. Crawling to the nearest parapet, he gripped the cool stonework with both hands and rose unsteadily to his feet.

Three thousand men-at-arms lay strewn about in the field beyond, either dead or unconscious. All around him upon the rampart, as well as behind him in the city proper, was the same; men-at-arms, archers, mages, even knights lay unconscious upon the ground. A scattered few were awaking one by one, the same as he, weakened and dreary.

Rowena was the first to find him, along with a grouping of soldiers.

“Lukas,” she said in the worried tone of a friend. A bad thing, if the others were to pick up on it.

“I’m fine,” he said, though he dared not release his hands from the parapet. Strength had yet to return to him fully.

“The giant…”

“Gone,” Lukas said. He balled his hands into fists. “He’s a damned mage. Powerful. How far into the city did the magic take effect?”

“Far enough. Those within two hundred feet of the wall fell unconscious. Beyond that people were hit with varying degrees of weakness and nausea, extending no more than another two hundred feet.”

A stupendous range, one that made him hesitate.

“Can you beat him?” came the question he feared. No, he wanted to say, but the words would not escape his lips. Lukas Merveillo did not admit defeat so easily.

“Maybe,” he said, and thought.

The magic the giant had cast was a novelty of application, something he had never seen before; what was not a novelty was the magic itself. Rendering a single foe unconscious with magic was not so difficult, especially for those trained in the healing arts. It was the scale that gave him pause. Thousands rendered unconscious in an instant. Even now, after minutes had passed, less than half were beginning to awake in the fields beyond the city, groggy and partially delirious, like drunkards. The man’s mana reserves must have been enormous.

“We must find him first,” he said, and Rowena nodded and left him with haste.

When she had gone Lukas pushed away from the parapet and stood with his own power. His legs trembled, but they held, and soon enough the strength to descend the stairs came back to him.

Knights and mages were the first to awaken, those able already attending to their unconscious brethren. The healers were the busiest of all; waking another was an easy thing, but even still they were required to drain mana potion after mana potion to keep pace.

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A few noticed Lukas’s arrival and gathered around him.

“Orders?” a knight asked of him.

“Has there been any sighting of the intruder?”

The knight shook his head. “None. A perimeter has been created further in the city, but with this many unconscious…”

“No matter. Spread the word that I am awake and alive, and make certain that any sighting of this giant is made known either to myself or Rowena. Now go.”

The knight saluted and went off, leaving the mages behind. They were the strongest of them, battle mages all, though he trusted only those of Hilva, who sported chains of silver about their necks.

“You three,” he said, motioning to those not of Hilva, “gather any mages you can find and set about defending the wall. There’s no telling if another attack is on the way.”

When they were off and Lukas was alone with the mages of Hilva he guided them into the city. They passed through the perimeter, manned by a loose assortment of men-at-arms and a knight familiar to Lukas, then stopped before a church building.

Among the largest and finest in the city, the holy building's presence merely reminded Lukas of the heathen ways of Drygallis. Dilapidated by comparison to those in Hilva, the paintwork on the outer walls had begun to peel away, and its stained glass windows were in need of washing.

It’s damned small, too, Lukas thought. Azphine was the God of Triumph, one of the eight Gods of the Council, yet this building, built in Azphine’s name, gave off no such feeling.

It would have to do.

Lukas entered the church. Empty, he guided the mages to the center, their footsteps echoing. Together they form a circle, then knelt and closed their eyes.

“In the eyes of the Council,” Lukas prayed, and the others followed.

In the eyes of the Eight, we beseech the God of this temple, Azphine.

God of Triumph, God of Victory.

In this hour of light, grant us your might.

An enemy lingers at the doorstep.

Warmth filled him as the prayer finished, a relieving warmth like that experienced beside a fireplace after trekking through the snow. Divine power, unlike anything else in all the world. Lukas opened his eyes, barely making out the silhouettes of the mages around him in the dimness of the church. As always, he expected the warmth that followed prayer to be accompanied by some sort of light and was disappointed to see that there was none. The results of the prayer were pleasing, nonetheless.

Guided by a faint tug, like the guiding hand of a loving mother, Lukas left the church with mages in tow. After no more than a hundred steps did it become obvious where the giant had gone.

“Find as many knights as you can and tell them to head to the Baron’s manor,” he ordered a mage. “Urgently.”

Lukas rushed down the streets of Grensfield, commandeering the first horses he saw and galloping toward the Baron’s manor.

The iron gate that once stood closed was now a mess of bent and broken metal. Beyond it they spotted the giant, standing tall in the manor's courtyard and surrounded by men-at-arms and knights with swords and spears drawn.

“You there, halt!” Lukas called out.

The giant turned. As he did so a man-at-arms behind him seized the opportunity, stabbing his spear through a meaty leg. If the intruder felt pain he did not show it. Instead he conjured forth a wave of wind that blew the circle of men to the ground, then plucked the spear from his leg and healed the wound with a wave of his hand.

“You had better pose a greater challenge,” the giant intruder said, his voice deep and booming, like a being from myth.

I do not know that I can, Lukas thought. His skin stung in the man’s presence, a side effect of the man’s massive mana reserves. He estimated that it was near twice his own.

Lukas shrugged. “We will see, if that is to be the way of things. I would much prefer you surrender, that I might save myself the effort of killing you.”

“You can’t kill me,” the giant said, turning his head toward the manor. Lukas followed the man’s gaze and shivered.

“You are here for the oracle?” Lukas asked, and the man turned back to him. “I see by your look I was correct. Your presence here raises many questions, but if you are here for the oracle then you must die.”

He lifted a hand and felt divine warmth flow, and the giant was blown off his feet.