The infantry glance toward me with their weapons raised. They glance at one another as they take step by tentative step toward me. In front, their shorter-ranged weapons like maces, swords, and clubs, behind them were a row of ten pike men with the tips of their quivering spears pointed in my direction.
The archers' strained with their arrows pointed at me. Perhaps they knew that if I used an earth spell, I wouldn’t be able to use Gust and thus they were waiting for that opportunity...
“You that bind them all, protect me from those that might cause me harm,” I whisper as I tap myself with my wand after drawing the circular rune.
The glimmering of the air as the shield forms around me seems to be the match in the powder keg. One of the archers let loose a whistling arrow. Its life ends quickly as green streak flashes across the darkness and tears open a fist-sized hole through its head. The arrow bounces off the shield, and the infantry charges forward, maintaining their semicircle formation. I’ll kill as many as I can before this turns into a melee. Two more green lines streak across the sky; one knocking aside an arrow aimed at me, and the other piercing the archer that let it loose. With that, the archers turn their attention to the unseen Nyt standing atop the roof of the building.
I draw the kris, and point it forward.
“You Shades who live within these blades, and answer to these words. I let loose those aweful wards, and send you to my prey.”
By the time I finish the incantation, the formation had already closed about half the distance between the edge of the small clearing and the door to the building I was guarding. Four violet phantoms scream out of the blade and slip in and out of the gathered Efrans with all the speed of a gale. This was the perfect time of night to use it. No light, not even from the moon, could drive the shades away.
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One by one the infantry falls and slides to a stop on the dusty soil. Too easy. Lure them into the false sense that they’ve backed me into a corner, and, when they’re already committed enough to pull back, do something big to turn the tides. I approach the prone infantrymen — drained of all of their energy, and sheathe the kris. The phantoms that had been diving in and out of them vanish as they return to their warded prisons within the purple crystals. One of the stronger Efrans — a ratman with three golden rings on its tail, attempts to stand, but I lay it low with a heavy kick to its ribs; sending it flying a couple of feet through one of the wattle and daub buildings at the edge of the clearing; sending the entire wall collapsing on top of it. An arrow bounces off of my shield.
“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.”
A stone about half the size of my head rips from the ground and sails in the direction that the arrow had come from. With a sickening crunch, I know that it had found its target. I bend at the waist, and pull one of the pikes out of the grasp of one of the dogmen fighting against the pull of sleep he must be filling. A heavy stomp on his wrist puts an end to his fight, though.
“Need help?” I call up Nyt.
The Ir had a white ethereal bow in its grasp as if it had been pulled from pure moonlight. Two arrows sail at her, and she kicks the ground. Two of the clay shingles lift up from the roof, and she sends them flying at the arrows. The red terracotta shatters, and Nyt pulls back on the invisible string and lets loose before the dust could fall.
The red dust jolts forward as if a great force had shot through them. Moments later, I catch sight of the green glimpse right before one ratman archer dies and rolls off the roof to join the others on the ground nearby. I suppose that’s a no. I take the lull to slam the point of the pike through the enemies laying prone on the ground. The gray dusty ground runs thick and as red as rust that night. The last archer rolls backward as Nyt’s invisible arrow runs it through.