Chapter 10: Ledas: The Short-Circuit
Ledas put his hand into the bag. Amidst the clothes, something made the sound of silver coins. "I need to hide all this," he muttered. Moving through the alleys, he removed his disguise and blended into the Sunday evening crowd until he reached the gates on the opposite side of town, closer to the tavern, where the guards were regulars at one of the places the band performed.
After a friendly chat with a guard, he slipped out of the town, heading towards a small forest to bury some of the identifiable treasure. Under a tree in a small clearing, he properly examined the contents.
Inside was a set of fine clothes, requiring a bit of slimming to fit Ledas properly, as he figured out by trying them on. He could adjust them himself later. There was also a pouch with silver and bronze coins worth around 30 drahms, three pairs of fresh socks, an unfinished textbook with "Property of the Mage's Guild" stamped on the first page, and two flasks of sweet-smelling liquid—brandy. There was a perfume bottle with a rich citric aroma.
Ledas grabbed a tin mug and conjured water in it, this time turning it into an ice ball. He poured a bit of brandy over it like he had seen affluent patrons do. "Crime pays," he whispered to himself, smiling as he slowly enjoyed the drink while counting coins, still wearing the fine garments. He looked at himself through the pocket mirror. The attire clearly was for a respectable man. He wasn't one.
Four gold worth of coins—40 silver drahms during the day. That was a bit less than they had earned last month. Images of a good bed and a goose feather pillow filled Ledas's mind.
Ledas continued to submerge in fantasies. Maybe, they could buy a cart, and if things go well and items are fencable, a donkey to pull it, so when they leave Tigranakert when the roads will stop being a mess, they wouldn’t need to worry about breaking their backs carrying all their stuff. Olaf would be pissed if he learned what Ledas did, but in his own mind, the petty thief did the right thing. He taught the asshole mages a lesson.. He felt empowered.
In the middle of his daydreaming, something alerted him: magic was cast not too far away pinging his perception. The spell might have not been very strong, but it was large enough to catch his attention. It was maybe ten meters tall and about a hundred or two hundred meters away from him. The feeling of power he just obtained vanished as anxiety filled his mind.
"This is too much for one day. I am out,” He wasn't planning to figure out who was casting massive spells in the woods in the evening. Maybe this was some tracking spell, looking for a young thief who stole from the mages guild. He ran in the opposite direction for a couple of minutes, but he couldn't feel any traces of magic cast anymore.
He put his cheap cape back on, to cover his new expensive clothes he originally planned to hide in the woods. It was twilight when he returned to the town gates. The last groups of people were entering the town before the gates closed. Ledas hoped he wouldn't be scanned.
Suddenly, a horn sounded from the walls. "GET IN!" a guard shouted. Civilians were pushed inside as the portcullis dropped. Guards rushed up the stairs with crossbows ready. Horns blared, and ballistae fired. Ledas ran towards the tavern as the ground trembled beneath his feet.
"FIRE!!!"
Instantly, crossbows and ballistae started to shoot. A bestial roar shattered the evening calm.
"Huh?" Ledas turned around as everyone was trying to figure out how to react.
They were late, as an earthshaking explosion rocked the city. BAM!
Ledas was knocked off his feet as rocks and debris flew through the air. Dust billowed around him, blocking out the setting sun and plunging the street into an eerie twilight. Next to him, he saw a man lying on the ground. From the looks of it, he was shielding his kid and wife. His back and occiput were red from blood but he was breathing.
“Huh?” Ledas tried to focus, a child was crying right next to him. A woman screamed at the top of her lungs seeing her husband. Shouts, screams, and the sound of breakage filled his ears.
Dazed, Ledas uttered a spell he practiced for cases of emergency. He practiced it a lot to the point of doing it instinctively. Arty almost broke his neck a few times, so it was a must-have spell.
"Mother of Mercy" he moved his fingers to skip the middle part of the incantation,- "Through my hands, life perseveres". The bleeding stopped, but Ledas was already looking towards the source of the explosion. That wasn’t a wound Ledas could possibly heal.
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Ledas struggled to his feet clumsily. Through the haze, he saw the thing—a three-story tall, burning lizard-like monstrosity crashing through the town wall moving faster than a running horse. Its massive form was already pincushioned with crossbow bolts, but they seemed to only enrage it further. The beast's roar was deafening, drowning out the screams of terror and pain that filled the air.
Fear didn't have time to take hold of him yet.
He sprinted towards the Vishap's Belly Inn which the beast just barraged through, barely 30 meters away from him. As he rushed through the street his hands moved in practiced motions, casting stabilizing spells on the wounded he passed, skipping the middle and the last part of the incantation by casting it with his runes. Red splashes marked where people had been crushed by debris or the beast. The longer he moved the more panicked he became. Ledas didn't stop, he couldn't stop.
He burst into the now partially collapsed tavern through the absent wall.
"Finn! Flynn!" he shouted, his voice cracking with panic. Olaf and Arty were strong. They should be fine. Dead and wounded patrons were everywhere. Ledas threw out a flurry of stabilizing spells left and right, almost unconsciously as he moved through the chaos. He checked every body covered in dust to see if they were his friends. He was desperately calling for them.
“Olaf! Arty, where the hell are you!?” Each spell to stabilize someone produced slight black sparks on the runes of his hands, zapping him slightly with magic, but he barely felt it. The innkeeper, white-faced and trembling, pointed towards the stables as Ledas stopped his bleeding.
Ledas raced out back stumbling on the rubble, only to find the stables in even worse condition. The roof had caved in, and flames were already burning the hay and horses alive. His heart stopped as he saw a pool of blood seeping from beneath a fallen wall — and a small hand in a white glove lying next to the rubble.
"No, no, no," he muttered, his voice breaking as he recognized the twins' clothes. He bit his fist, biting slightly through the skin as he frantically moved from one place to another.
“OLAF, ARTY, ANYBODY HELP!” He cried so loud that his cords hurt. But only horses burning alive responded with their screeching. A weak cough caught his attention amongst the chaos.
"Arty!" Ledas cried, spotting his friend pinned under a heavy beam, flames creeping ever closer.
He tried to lift the beam with his hands, his clothes catching fire as he strained to lift it even a few centimeters. It was too heavy to lift with hands or magic, and it was too close to Arty to blast it with a spell, but if he could lift it just enough for Arty to slide under.
Ledas tried to scream, but no sound came out. His skin was growing pale as pieces of ice formed on it, only to be melted by the heat in this burning room and to quench his burning clothes.
“Do something!” he screamed in his mind, breaking away from the paralysis.
“Right, Finn or Flynn might be alive under the rubble while I am standing here,” He tried to calm himself.
He rushed to the rubble under which, he thought, Finn or Flynn, or someone else, might be trapped. After removing a dozen stones he found a face, with one of the temples swollen and eyes motionless. He jumped back in panic falling next to the burning hay, acidic juices from his stomach filled his mouth.
He tried to cast the spell, but he couldn't speak, so he substituted the whole incantation with runes. The spell went off, but it didn’t stick to Flynn’s lifeless body.
He entered the burning stall the group occupied. His eyes darted wildly, landing on Olaf's motionless form half-buried under rubble in the corner of the stall the group occupied.
His hands scraped against jagged wood and stone. His cape caught fire from the burning hay, so he tossed it aside. Moving on instinct alone, Ledas grabbed Olaf and dragged him out of the burning stable, struggling with all his limited might to move the heavy strongman out.
As they emerged into the street, Ledas pulled his friend behind him, looking for any help. A building next to him collapsed. The monstrous beast was mere yards away, engaged in combat with a knight wielding a burning greatsword. A dozen soldiers lay broken around them, their weapons ineffective against the creature's thick hide.
Ledas couldn't move. It was over. He jumped out of the fire and into the pit. His hands moved automatically to cast a healing spell on Olaf, but something felt wrong. When the spell failed to go off, he looked down at his hands. His stomach lurched—two of his fingers were twisted grotesquely backwards, blood coating the damaged runes etched into his skin. His runes were sparkling and fizzling with magical energy as he watched in horror.
His own magic short-circuited itself through his runes.
He collapsed next to Olaf, paralyzed, forced to watch helplessly as his best friend's life ebbed away beside him. The knight's burning sword cleaved through the beast's foot, toppling it onto a nearby building. The knight jumped on the prone beast: his sword piercing its neck. With a final, earth-shaking roar, the monster fell still, flames erupting from its wounds.