The roar of the river grew as they drew close, and Gwen urged her horse forward to get a good look.

A bridge was sat there as Macha had described, a surprisingly robust construction of rope and wood situated just before a section of rapids and supported by long logs that had been driven vertically down into the riverbed.

The wind was whistling along the river and helping kick the spray from the rapids up into the air. The storm was drawing close. These winds were the edge of its effect.

“Alright, this should be easy enough,” Vaijon said, passing the vial with the orb of fire over to one of his companions. “Use that on the other side and then handle the rest as you will.”

The man nodded and took the vial before dismounting and jogging across the bridge to a short distance away from the far entrance. Hefting the vial, he threw it so it smashed on the bridge.

As soon as the glass vial shattered, the flames within exploded out, creating an effect that Gwen recognised from the fireballs that Verdan cast. The principle looked to be about the same, but Vaijon’s seemed more destructive, which was impressive.

The far side of the bridge was broken now, its rope burnt and a good section of the wood itself washed away down the rapids.

“What about the rest of it?” Gwen asked, curious what they’d do next.

“Just watch, this is my favourite bit,” Vaijon said, waving to the Sorcerer on the other bank, who gave a lazy salute before kneeling down next to the riverbank and putting one hand in the water.

Gwen shared a curious look with Hedda, unsure of what was going to happen next. The Sorcerers she knew didn’t need direct contact with whatever they wanted to manipulate.

Then again, these Sorcerers weren’t exactly normal.

As if to underline that thought, the Sorcerer began to sing, his hand still in the water.

Gwen strained to hear what he was singing, but the words were lost to the rising roar of the river as the fast-flowing water grew choppy and turbulent.

Within moments, the previously smooth surface of the river was unrecognisable.

Abruptly, the water right before the supports of the bridge dipped down and the rapids turned a muddy brown as great chunks of earth were ripped free from the riverbed.

In less than a minute since the Sorcerer began singing, the supports were ripped free from the earth and sent floating down river, smashing on the rocks of the rapids as they went.

Withdrawing his hand from the river, the Sorcerer waited for it to calm down, which took only a few moments, before strolling back over to them. Each step across the river was met with a swell of water rising to meet his feet, and Gwen watched incredulously as the Disciple rejoined them.

“All done. Good, wasn’t it,” Vaijon said, winking at Hedda.

“Just what sort of Sorcerers are you?” Gwen asked, fixing Vaijon with a hard look.

“We’re the Disciples of Adamar, didn’t you know?” Vaijon gave her an innocent look before laughing to himself. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to tease quite so much. Suffice to say, we’re the Sorcerers that don’t fit anywhere else.”

“I think we worked that one out for ourselves,” Hedda said in a dry tone before gesturing over to the Sorcerer who’d controlled the river. “Do you mean to tell me that what he did is normal for a Sorcerer?”

Vaijon was silent for a few long moments before he spoke again. “Consider it a different application of what I did with that vial.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Gwen asked, growing increasingly frustrated with his evasive answers.

“They use their soul somehow,” Zhalia said, joining the conversation for the first time. “All the Airta can sense it.”

“Oh, how interesting,” Vaijon said, fixing Zhalia with an intent look. “I’m so very glad we came to join this alliance. You’ve all been so very insightful.”

“Not going to deny the soul part, then?” Gwen asked.

“I see no reason to now that you know,” Vaijon said, urging his horse into motion and waving for them all to follow. “We don’t bring it up as we like to avoid other Sorcerers demanding to know how we do it. But once you know, you know.”

Gwen urged her horse on to catch up with him. “If you deal in soul magic, do you know anyone who can heal it?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Heal what?”

“The soul,” Gwen said, resisting the urge to call up a storm and blast this annoying man with a bolt of lightning.

Vaijon looked over at her, mouth open to deliver another evasive answer, but paused as he saw her expression. “Ah. I’m sorry, I had no idea. Yourself, or a friend of yours?”

Gwen’s mouth felt dry all of a sudden and she turned away to stare at the path they were following along the riverbank. “A friend.”

It felt cheap to call Kai that, but she didn’t know what else to say. They’d kissed when she stayed to watch over him, but they’d both been so busy since then that they’d not had a chance to really talk.

“Then I’m sorry to say that there is no magic I know of to allow someone to heal the soul of another. Healing is possible, but it must be done by the injured person.”

“Could you show him how?” Gwen asked, hope and fear crashing together in her chest.

“He would need to learn to manipulate his soul, and that is something that can not be taught. If, by the grace of the gods, he finds a way to do so, bring him to me and I will show him what I know.”

Gwen nodded, trying to hide her disappointment that she hadn’t found a solution. “Thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

“I am sorry that I can not do more,” Vaijon said with what she took to be genuine regret. “Injuries to the soul are a nasty business.”

Gwen nodded, remembering the oddly grey material inside Kai’s arm, it didn’t even look like bone anymore.

If Kai learning to manipulate his soul was what needed to happen, then that was what they’d do. Verdan had amassed a frankly bizarre group of allies by this point, and while none had known how to heal him, perhaps they’d know more about the soul.

At the very least, it was a start.

Taking a breath, Gwen pushed all her worries aside and focused on the here and now.

They had a river to scout and some bridges to burn.

-**-

They found the second bridge several hours later, but unlike the first, this one was made of stone. The same trick with the river wouldn’t work here unless they gouged out at least several feet of compact earth from the riverbank on either side.

While she assumed the Sorcerer from earlier could do so if needed, it would take time, and they couldn’t spare much if they wanted to stay on track.

The rest of the allied force would be arriving at the ridgeline that the Commander had picked out in the morning. That gave them just under a day to deal with this and then sweep the rest of the river.

Vaijon and two of the Disciples were down at the river taking a closer look, and Gwen shook her head at how they’d ignored her and her Coven.

These Disciples seemed different to other Sorcerers, but they still thought of themselves as the only magical solution to problems.

Smirking to herself, Gwen decided it was time to change that.

Thankfully, they’d already dismounted when they saw the bridge and realised it would take a bit more time to deal with. The Pathfinder had some of her people feeding and watering the horses downstream, away from whatever would happen up here.

Opening up the bond between her and Kuzo, she let her awareness expand, taking in the magic all around them and how it echoed all of nature.

The storm she’d been sensing was a little to their west. They’d caught just a touch of rain earlier on, but it was close enough that Gwen could draw on it.

She could, and had, made a storm form in blue skies before now, but that made everything more difficult, and the resulting magic slightly less intense.

Drawing on the edge of the storm, she grabbed hold of it, guiding a channel of Aether up into it as she did. Verdan had told her that she wasn’t moving the storm itself, just taking some of its natural aspect and placing it into the ambient Aether of the sky.

Something like that anyway.

As far as she was concerned, she fed the Aether into the original storm and borrowed it for a little while.

The rapid creation of storm clouds overhead caused some alarm, and those who’d seen Gwen in action before rapidly moved away from the bridge.

“Vaijon!” Gwen shouted down to the Sorcerer, who was peering up at the storm with a frown. “Get out of the way!”

Gwen was pleasantly surprised that the Sorcerers did just that, clearing well back from the bridge and giving her room to work.

Lifting a hand to the sky, Gwen took hold of the boiling power within the storm and connected it to the ground.

The world flashed white as the earth shook and a torrent of lightning struck the bridge, shattering it into thousands of pieces like a passing god had smote it with a hammer.

Gwen’s ears were ringing, but she muttered a prayer to Ceravwen anyway, thanking her for the power that she’d placed into Gwen’s hands.

Distantly, Gwen thought she heard Macha shouting her name and looked over to see the Kranjir Witch frantically pointing to the far riverbank.

There, in the treeline, she could see them.

Cyth.

There must have been at least fifty of them, and from the charred corpses floating in the river, some had tried to rush the bridge when the Sorcerers moved away.

Gwen’s initial shock faded into a malicious smile as she reached back to the storm, this time pulling on a far smaller amount of the power she had fed into it.

Gwen still remembered how she’d been captured, bound and left in a cellar to be slowly corrupted. To be turned into one of them.

Lightning flashed again and again as Gwen bombarded that section of the forest, calling up a gale as she did to blow through the trees from the east and keep them off balance.

The staccato beat of the lightning strikes drowned out all other sounds, but it was only when she saw no further movement that Gwen finally let it end.

Tiredness flowed through her at harnessing and using so much Aether. It was only the natural origin of the storm that had let her push it so far so easily.

“Macha,” Gwen said into the absolute silence that followed the final strike. “Are there any more?”

The Witch was already pulling more feathers from her hair to make new copies of her familiar. Breathing life into them, she threw them into the air. “All of my old ones are dead, I thought they’d just run out, but something must have destroyed them.”

Gwen’s eyes went wide and she grabbed Macha to drag her away from their spot overlooking the river. If there was something out there that could destroy the crows, it was probably a Cyth Bayne, and that meant they needed Hedda.

“Gwen, good job with the bridge, but what was the second set of strikes about?” Vaijon asked, frowning as he saw them rushing along.

“Cyth on the far bank, and something took out Macha’s crows,” Gwen called out, looking around frantically. “Where’s Hedda?”

Vaijon was caught off-guard but quickly mastered himself. “She went to check on the horses. I’ll send some of the Airta to fetch them.”

“No, I’ll go,” Gwen said, turning and rushing to the south as Vaijon began to get everyone organised.