The anger of Jon’s need burned away everything else in his life. His sadness and grief at what had happened to Elise, his fear and doubt about what was going to happen next, and even his pity for the men and women that were about to die by his hand - all of it was replaced by a burning sense of rage that filled up his entire being.
He could barely feel the cool morning air on his face anymore. All he could feel was the fire welling up inside of him and the dreadful hammering of his heart.
Until a moment ago, all he’d wanted was to win and to move their fight forward to the capital. Now he wanted his enemies to pay, and he started walking down the hillside without a single shred of protection or cover. It was a terrible idea that was more than foolhardy. The men he walked by called out to him to stop, but he couldn’t. He knew that even though he was out of range, the shrapnel of the explosions he was causing could be both dangerous and random in their lethality. Despite that, he could not accept that somewhere, just out of reach, dozens or even hundreds more shells existed that might yet rain down on the woman he loved.
So, with every step he descended down the uneven and hilly slope as he walked closer, his fire-blooded reach moved ever closer to the cannoneers. He was still hundreds of yards outside of bullet range, though if hundreds were fired at him at once, there was no telling whether a few might yet make it. All he knew was that this bombardment was ending now.
The dwarves continued to fire fruitlessly, and with each volley, their rounds exploded closer and closer to the cannon crews until they were in far more danger from their own shrapnel than his men were. Jon was in at least as much danger, of course. The metal rained from the impotent explosions he was continually triggering in the sky now, and more than once, a piece fell close enough to Jon that he could see it, but he didn’t care.
“This. Ends. Now,” he said, too quiet for anyone else to hear.
The dwarves could see that things were getting worse for them, and it wasn’t hard to see that it was almost certainly due to the man walking their way. So, just before he got in range of the cannons themselves, the dwarves let off a ranked volley with hundreds of brands. The first rank fired, and then the second rank fired as well, and though Jon froze for a moment, fearing that there was no way he could have survived such a fusillade, the closest dust plumes struck the earth 20 yards ahead of him.
Even as the dwarves finished, a wall of heavy cavalry began to charge toward him. There were hundreds of knights in armor, all vying for the chance to ride him down. Between his coal dust and his dwarven powder, there was no way that Jon had enough fire on him to deal with such a threat, but fortunately, the fire he needed was only a little out of reach now.
When Jon got to the point where he could feel the closest source of intense energy from the dwarvish line, he tried to detonate it immediately. He wasn’t sure what the source was at this distance, but he hoped to blow up the shot in one of the cannons or perhaps the stockpiles that sat not far behind them.
But nothing happened.
That confused Jon for a moment, and he tried again almost instantly as the horses continued to charge him. Again, though, his fiery spark vanished into the ether rather than set off any explosion. It was only when he glimpsed the red robes in between two charging horses that he understood. Back there, near the cannons, were imperial war casters, and though he doubted they were a match for his strength or his range, there was no question that they were stronger than him when he was fighting against them at his very limits.
That posed a conundrum for Jon, but fortunately, he had an idea. This time he didn’t send a single spark. That would have been too easy for them to counter. This time he gathered his power, draining half his powder flask in a single shot, and then he unleashed a storm of sparks. No, storm was too weak a word. He unleashed a constellation of embers into every source of fire he could feel at this range.
The effort winded him, but when he saw the chain of explosions starting to ripple from left to right along the line of cannons, he knew it was worth it. No matter how many mages they’d tried to array against him, they could never hope to match his skill. He was utterly certain of that. None of them had ever had to use their magic just to continue to live one more day in the impossible heat of the deeps.
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As fireballs rippled into the sky, he stole their flames to burn the knights that were closest to riding him down. Even at 50 yards away, every opening in their plate mail suddenly began to suddenly spew fire and smoke. Their screams quickly followed. The smarter knights tried to rein in their horses or disengage from the fight, but it was much too late for that now. Jon wasn’t going to let anyone leave the field now. Everyone that got close enough for him to reach became another vessel that he could fill with his overflowing fire.
This drained him, of course, creating a vicious cycle. The more fire he released, the more it called to him. Jon had felt like this only a couple times in his life, but he’d never wanted to give in to the all-consuming flame inside of him more than he did right now. When he’d burned the station down, it was the village he’d grown up in that held him back, and when he cooked the troll alive, it was his own frail body. This time though, he was in perfect health, and he didn’t care who saw as he laid waste to the army in front of him. He didn’t even care if they killed him in the process.
It was ironic because if the dwarves had merely sent the humans to fight and die, Jon would have lacked the fire he needed to burn everything alive within a hundred yards of where he stood. Even his men would have quickly run out of bullets against such a numerous foe. The stone men insisted on using their cannons against a man that knew fire in ways they never would, though, and now they would pay for their mistake.
Jon had become a conduit for energies that would normally be beyond even his control. He was an inferno now. A living firestorm, and whenever they started to wane, he simply detonated another cannon to refresh himself. He was having trouble thinking of himself as a single person now. He was just the tiny part at the bottom of the flame, or perhaps not even that. He was just the wick that drew it forth and was miraculously unburned in the process. The only way he could keep from cooking himself alive now was to spew fire at everything as fast as he received it.
With the power he had in this moment, he could reach well past his normal bounds, and even as he exhausted the cannons nearby, he made up for it by detonating the brands and the powder flasks in the closest ranks of the dwarven soldiers. The sight was enough to give him terrible thoughts that bordered on pure hubris or even sacrilege, and he knew that as soon as he’d burned through all the kindling that the dwarves had brought him to feast on, it would not longer, by the case, but right now he felt like a demigod of destruction.
He was no longer channeling flame but the pure, unrelenting force of Arvoz. It seemed impossible to him that the gods themselves were doing anything but finally rewarding him for all of his hardships, even as his enemies melted and burned to ash around him.
A volley of longbow arrows suddenly appeared in the air, arching towards him. Clearly, someone was thinking back there. That would have been an excellent way to kill him a few minutes ago, Jon mused, but right now, he was brimming with too much fire. This allowed him to respond swiftly, and he engulfed all the arrows in flames. There wasn’t enough time for the fire to burn through the thick shafts, of course, but the fletching went up in an instant, dispersing them over a much wider field than intended, as he stepped into the shadow of a smoldering knight, using it as a body shield as the rain of death came down all around him.
He was only ever an instant from death when he was exposed like this, but at the same time, there was an intoxicating thrill that made him feel immortal. In that confusing haze, he felt, for the first time in years, the swelling power of a fire shard somewhere just at the edge of his range. No - he felt several of the crystals, and he hungered for them. When Jon had held one as a boy, he’d had no idea how powerful they were, but now that he’d mastered his element, he knew that he could do terrible things with such a source. Even as he pulled at their power, though, their wielders pulled back further into the safety of their own army.
Unlike the dwarves that continued to blindly march forward, at least the warcasters could see exactly what they were up against, and they wanted no part of it. The latest rank of dwarves to march close enough for Jon to reach them were rewarded by suddenly bursting into flame to feed the growing funeral pyre that he was causing.
Jon wasn’t a person anymore. He was an elemental force, and all he wanted to do was burn the world down. The only ones that were spared his wrath were the men that were safely behind him by several hundred yards now. From here, he could still feel the fire in their weapons, and the temptation was there to detonate it. Even if he knew that he shouldn’t, part of him craved to add to the bonfire.
And then, just as the world was consumed in fire, he heard the distant roar, and he came back to his senses as he realized he shouldn’t have lingered as long as he had. The surrounding horsemen were on fire or fleeing, but neither they nor the minor wounds he’d sustained during his pyrotechnic show were a concern anymore.
Jon walked to the closest lancer, who was choking on the burning air he tried to inhale while he yanked on his reigns hard enough to make his horse rear in circles. It was just one more part of the chaos, but it was exactly what Jon needed. He was much too tired to run for his life, so with a push, he knocked the senseless rider off of his saddle and swung on in his place. The horse bucked briefly, but Jon brought it back under control before turning it back toward his own lines.
Death was coming for all of them, and he needed to get out of the way.