Half a heartbeat later, two of the unimpaired scouts converged upon Julie as one, diving at her from opposite directions. When she realized that her angle of escape had been cut off, the woman panicked, leaping to one side while activating her magical staff, just in time to save herself. Julie’s timing was solid, and she blasted her assailants with a roaring torrent of flame.
One of the wasps was consumed by the conflagration, reduced to a smoking lump of char in the blink of an eye. The other was only grazed, one of its wings curling in as the delicate membrane was singed. But in her haste, Julie caught her partner in the periphery of the blast, the man who was wielding the short bow and spear, whose name escaped Nick in that moment.
Although he was only engulfed by the searing cone for a second, the man’s clothing and hair were set ablaze. He dove to the ground, rolling to extinguish the flames while slapping at his head. He was able to put out the fire, but the motion had carried him into the path of two of the frostfury scouts. Adrenaline poured into Nick’s veins the moment he realized that the man’s life was in danger. With Kenji and Devin at his side, Nick ran toward his fallen ally, intending to use his wand to cover the man until he could get back onto his feet.
But at that very moment, the frostfury soldier and the three uninjured scouts flew straight into Nick’s face, exchanging a furious series of blows instead of engaging in their usual dive-bombing tactics. The soldier’s barb was more than a match for his sword, and he was helpless to do anything other than hold the beasts back from his throat. He couldn’t draw his wand or summon a mana dart with the creatures swarming him. Nick would be dead the moment he tried, although he did manage to scratch the soldier in the process.
The intense melee lasted only a handful of heartbeats, but that was long enough to seal the fallen man’s fate. Before the others could reach his side, the unengaged wasps struck. Nick could only watch in horror as the beasts completed a streaking dive, their stingers piercing the man’s flesh with no appreciable resistance. One wasp stung him in the pit of his stomach, while the other barb bit into the hollow of his throat. For the ghost of a moment, the young man seemed to be ok, rising to his feet and darting over to rejoin the party.
But then a horrified expression crossed his face and the man started to scream. “Kevin! No…” Julie cried, staff clattering against the floor as she raced over to his side. Kevin. His name is Kevin. Nick vowed to remember, as his mind raced to come up with anything that might save the stricken teenager. But even if Nick had deduced some way to help, there simply wasn’t enough time.
Only half a heartbeat later, two patches of frost appeared where Kevin was stung, the lower one visible through the hole the wasp had bored through his leather armor. Kevin lurched from side-to-side and began to convulse, wailing in consummate terror, the whites of his eyes visible all the way around.
In between the drawing of one breath and the next, the creeping circles of frost expended from the size of a quarter to the width of Nick’s palm, encasing the afflicted tissue in a steaming layer of rime, as Kevin’s body turned to ice from the inside out. Seeing that it was already too late, and that their formation was in imminent danger of collapsing completely, Kenji called the party back. The others pulled themselves together, but Julie was consumed with panic and grief and kept right on running, screaming that she was sorry all the while.
It would have been a death sentence with the fight still underway. But just before Julie darted out of reach, Kenji turned and punched her in the face, knocking her to the floor in a daze. The rest of the party fell into formation around Julie’s fallen form. Nick was still reeling with shock, but he knew that Kenji’s brutal act of mercy had not only saved the woman’s life, but spared her the sight of what happened next. Because that was when Kevin’s frozen form toppled, body shattering into ragged ruby chunks as he collided with the floor in a spew of frost-rimed gore.
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“And there it is, ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer screamed. “After a surprisingly strong showing from team Earth, the frostfury wasps have claimed their first kill and forced our contestants to take out one of their own. This fight has been far closer than I expected, but how much longer can the humans hold on? They have already burned through a ton of abilities, and at their level, they can’t have many more in reserve. The frostfury scouts have been whittled down, but the soldier is still buzzing strong. I can’t wait to find out who will live through the next few minutes. This match is still anyone’s game!”
Nick shut out the rest of the announcer’s commentary, which he had been doing throughout most of the fight without conscious effort. He was shocked to his core to see another person die in front of him, the first time that Nick had witnessed the death of his own kind in battle. Kevin’s demise would haunt his dreams for countless nights to come, but he didn’t have time to think about it now. His survival instincts kicked in to partition his awareness of the tragic event to the far recesses of his mind.
Nick couldn’t afford to stop and process their loss now. Not while the first battle was still underway, and another was yet to come.
He sensed that the others were only moments away from breaking down. That they needed to win this round fast if they were to have any chance at all. Fortunately, after managing to knock one of the scouts from the air with his axe, Devin reported an event that offered them a fighting chance. “That last hit did it. Flashfire pulse is charged and ready to go. I only have enough juice to use it once, so we have to make it count.”
At this point, there were five scouts left, two that were disabled by Paul’s magic and another whose wing had been singed by Julie’s staff. The frostfury soldier had racked up a collection of minor scratches during the melee, but nothing that did more than slow the elite beast down.
Nick knew that the announcer was right. His team had to finish this now, or they were all going to die, either to the wasps’ frigid venom or in the following round. “If only they couldn’t sense our mana,” Paul cursed. “I could hit them with my other arrow. There’s no point in saving it if we die here.”
“I have an idea,” Devin said. “Keep the bugs busy for another minute while I set it up.” Devin ran over to Julie’s unconscious form, where Sarah and Bret were standing guard beside a grief-stricken James, who was still in shock from watching his friend die in front of him. Nick didn’t have time to listen in and see what they were up to. Trusting Devin to work out the details, he threw himself into the fight, using the threat of his wand to keep the swarm from converging on their position.
Nick was stung twice during the frenetic melee that followed. Luckily, the beasts’ barbs couldn’t penetrate his toughness-modified leather jacket, which he’d put on over his other armor. By now, black exhaustion had sunk its languid claws into his muscles. His arms were leaden as they swung his sword, and his breath came fast and ragged. Beside Nick, Kenji and James fought bravely, burning through the last of their reserves as well. He knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them made a fatal mistake and gave the wasps an opportunity to claim another victim.
That was when matters went from bad to worse within a paltry handful of heartbeats. Because that was when Nick realized that Julie, the unlucky woman who had set her friend on fire, was no longer unconscious. She had risen back onto her feet, slipped past the people guarding her, and was running toward the door of their ready room in a blind panic. Julie was weaponless and made no move to defend herself in her haste. Worse, she had darted out of position before the others had noticed her flight.
Julie was completely vulnerable, and though the party was running to support her, Nick knew that they would never reach her in time. The frostfury swarm clearly agreed with his assessment. Continuing with their strategy of picking off the weakest prey first, the soldier and the remaining scouts disengaged from the main group and went streaking toward the defenseless woman, the buzzing of their wings resonating in his ears like a premonition of doom.
“No! Not again.” Nick screamed in helpless frustration as he sprinted to save her. He knew that it was already too late. That Julie was dead and nothing he could do would save her.