This can’t be happening, the childish, terrified part of El’s mind screamed at her. Something’s wrong with the lizards, her disciplined mind screamed right back. Focus on that!

Dozens, then hundreds of the scaled beasts charged out of the winter storm, their long legs devouring the distance as they rushed past the knight. Spears, more akin to ballista bolts than anything else, filled the sky as the rear line halted and threw.

The front line, meanwhile, leapt into the air, massive axes and clubs swinging at the dodging Firestorm.

“Open fire!” Faled shouted, too late.

El threw herself backward as two lizards landed on the roof, their huge weapons punching a hole through the stone right where she’d been standing.

She rolled to her feet, replacing her electrum bow focus with her sword hilt in one quick motion and dropped into The Fire Burns Low with her shield ignited in front of her.

The two lizards pulled their weapons from the hole in the building and slowly spread around her, obviously thinking they had her at a disadvantage without her wings.

But it wasn’t a disadvantage that kept her from flashing into the sky and getting the burning Blaze out of there. No, it was the lizards’ blue appearance.

The height was right, for they towered over her, at least eight feet tall, but what should’ve been hulking, muscular, and red, was instead thin, wiry, and blue. Long, narrow scales, like sapphires, rippled over corded muscles, a sinuous tail weaved behind each for balance, and sharp teeth glinted in their long snouts. Eyes set on the side of their heads blinked as they shifted to keep her in the center of their view.

“Last chance to surrender,” El said, shifting into The Setting Sunrise to keep her shield toward one opponent and her sword toward the other.

“The Stormbearer has come. No surrender. No mercy,” the lizard on her right spoke with frightening clarity.

Since when did the newts speak her language? Were these really the same lizards she’d read about?

El didn’t have a chance to answer those questions, the lizard on her left charging in with a powerful downward smash of its hammer. She caught the blow with her shield, but it still hit hard enough to crack the roof under her feet from the force of it. El spun to the side, rolling out from under the hammer, flared her wings and leapt up into a tight roll, the second lizard’s axe swiping across where she’d been standing. A second’s hesitation, or without the lift of her wings, and she would’ve lost her legs at the knees.

But when it came to combat, she didn’t hesitate. If anything, it brought her the calm focus she’d been struggling to find since the knight first appeared.

The moment her feet touched down, El lunged at the two surprised lizards. The first brought his axe up defensively, but El scored a trio of thrusted hits with Sea of Snakes and Flames to his shoulder, chest and gut. As he staggered back, blue blood blossoming from the wounds, El stepped in and rolled to her right, flaring her wings as she went. Her body spun like a top as she suddenly bounded into the air like some kind of flaming cyclone. Her first rotation knocked the lizard’s hammer aside with her shield while her second brought the blade of her flaming sword across its scaled throat.

El let the momentum of her maneuver carry her out of reach of the lizards’ long arms, and even longer weapons, and she touched down on the far end of the roof. Turning, she froze when she caught sight of her opponents.

Gruesome as it was, that spinning attack of hers should’ve decapitated the second lizard. Instead, it was still standing, one hand holding its throat as blood squirted through its fingers. And the other, at least one of the thrusts should’ve been fatal. In practice, when she’d stabbed things with her sword, it’d left a hole big enough to shove her arm through, the magic of the weapon incinerating everything around it.

Was something wrong with her sword? She glanced down at her blade. Yup, definitely something wrong.

Thick ice coated the edge of the blade and a good foot of the tip. The same spots she’d used to injure the lizards. To draw their blood.

No, these were not the same lizards she’d read about.

El snapped her wrist, flicking her blade against the lip of the roof and shattering the ice coating it, and gave a silent thanks the flames beneath looked no weaker.

The lizard on her right gave a gurgling growl and stepped forward, its hammer in one hand, the other on its throat, struggling to keep its life-blood in. The wound had to be lethal, but it was going to try to take her down first.

The axe lizard was even less patient, springing forward, his large weapon swiping across as he hurtled toward her.

El dropped into a crouch and flared her wings, launching herself forward and directly under the flying lizard. It sailed over her, and the edge of the roof, unable to alter its flight while El lashed out at other lizard’s legs from the blind spot afforded by its companion.

The lizard didn’t even see her coming, but again, where her blade should have cleaved right through the lizard’s legs, it barely parted the sapphire-blue scales and scored the bone. The unexpected resistance caught El’s arm and sent her rolling and bouncing along the rooftop while the lizard toppled forward.

A quick burst from El’s wings brought her back under control, and saved her the same fate as the first lizard, and she hurtled back at her fallen opponent just as it rolled onto its back. Blood pooled on the roof around its neck and legs, and El kicked aside its hammer before straddling its narrow chest and bringing the tip of her blade down on the center of its forehead.

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“Since you speak my language, you’re going to answer some questions for me,” El told it, and gently pressed her sword forward, the tip sizzling and smoking against the lizard’s scales. If it felt any pain, it didn’t show it.

“No answers. No surrender. No mercy,” the lizard said and swiped its clawed hand at El’s face. Well, tried to swipe, the quick thrust of El’s blade through its skull ending the attack before it even really started.

When she pulled the blade free, ice clung to the flames and fell to the roof as she doused the weapon. Just to test, she reignited her blade, and it was thankfully free of the impossibly clinging ice.

A shudder of post-combat nerves wracked El’s body, and she wrapped the fingers of her left hand around her right. That was the first time she’d killed anybody in combat. Sorties were one thing, more a game than actual combat, but the body literally at her feet was an entirely different matter. The dead inhuman eye on the side of the lizard’s head stared at her with an otherworldly blame, the hole in its head still lightly smoking from where she’d stabbed it. Blue blood pooled at her feet, sticking to her soles as she stepped to the side and vomited.

At least the flame armor didn’t keep that in, and she quickly stood up straight again. Getting stabbed in the back while she barfed was not how she wanted to go. With that thought, the sounds of combat filtered back to her ears, earlier lost to the focus of her own life-and-death struggle.

Firestorm blazed through the air between the building she stood on and the winter wall fifty feet away. The ground crawled with lizards, shoulder to shoulder and so thick the flaming arrows raining down couldn’t miss if they tried. Like her sword, however, the arrows weren’t nearly as fatal as they should’ve been.

Where a single flaming arrow should’ve punched through a scaled body and left a crater behind, they inflicted barely more than flesh wounds. The lizards’ spears, on the other hand, looked to be tipped with jagged icicles, and the Firestorm were doing everything they could to avoid the projectiles. Why? What could a spear do against their flame armor?

El’s eyes raked across the battlefield for signs of the answer, and she found it with a pair of Firestorm pinned to a wall down the street. The hafts of the spears extended well past the thick block of ice completely encasing the men or women and firmly securing them to the high wall.

“El! What are you still doing here?” Faled yelled and landed beside her, red blood running freely down his left arm. The sleeve of his coat was completely missing, and four nasty, symmetrical gashes had torn up his bicep. Claw marks? Is that what would’ve happened to her face if she hadn’t been fast enough?

The flame armor couldn’t protect them. This was all too much. Too real. Was this really what she’d been looking forward to?

“Corporal.” Faled’s voice took on a hard edge.

“Sorry, sir,” El said, snapping a salute to get her body moving.

“Why are you still here?”

“Got attacked.” She pointed at the lizard’s body.

“Yes, but why are you still here?” he asked.

“I…”

“You have orders. Now follow them before I…” Faled’s eyes widened, then he reached out and shoved her to the side just before a cone of frost washed over him.

Even through her flame armor, the chill nipped at El, and when it passed, Faled was covered head to toe, the ice crystals growing and spreading until he was entombed.

“NO!” El shouted uselessly, then spun toward the source of the attack. A lizard, one with holes in its shoulder, chest, and gut, pulled itself up and over the edge of the building, a misty liquid dripping from its teeth and lips. It was the same one she’d fought. That she hadn’t finished off. And Faled had paid the price.

But, what had it done? The lizards were supposed to be able to breathe fire, but that was not fire. Were they breathing cold now?

The lizard stood to its full height, blood still running down its chest from where she’d stabbed it, and flexed its claws. Would it try the same thing it’d done to Faled?

Not if she had anything to say about it!

El leaned forward and flared her wings to the maximum, the extreme jet of flame blowing the edge of the roof off behind her and hurling her up at an angle like a comet. Twenty feet up, fighting against the inertia of her leap, she twisted in the air and flared her wings again, abruptly shooting her back down at a sixty-degree angle.

The lizard spun to follow her with its eyes, but she flared her wings a third time, just as she dipped below the level of the roof and flipped in the air. The flames of El’s bursts carved a “4” in the air as she gripped her sword in both hands and cut straight for the turning lizard.

Bracing the sword instead of swinging it, the sheer force of El’s flight tore the blade across and through the lizard’s waist as she rocketed past. Blue blood trailed behind her, but El ignited her wings and not a drop of it touched her. She climbed and climbed, five hundred feet in the air, until she was well out of range of the lizards’ spears, and took in the battle below.

Faled was frozen to the roof she’d just left, and there wasn’t anything she could do for him. At least seven other Firestorm had been encased in blocks of ice, though it was impossible to tell who. Lizards continued to swarm out of the storm, there had to be thousands of them, and the remaining Firestorm El could see had taken up a defensive formation down one of the wide streets.

Why weren’t the trying to fly up, like she had?

If any of the enemy army looked up, her wings would stand out against the clear sky, but so far none of them had.

There! Lizards sprinted across rooftops, hurling spears at any flames that got too high, pinning the Firestorm down and keeping them contained. But, without Esis, Nite, or Faled, who was giving orders? El needed to get back down there to… wait, who was that at the front.

A trio of lizards charged at the front line of Firestorm and a single soldier flared their wings out to meet them. Sword in one hand, the other arm hanging loosely like a wet noodle, the soldier dodged, cut, spun, and killed the three lizards before they got another two steps. Like it was just another day at the office, the Firestorm solider jetted back to the safety of her comrades.

Esis was still alive. Both sides were at a standoff, but as long as Esis was alive, there was a chance.

“Enough,” a voice echoed, a weight to it that nearly pulled El back down to the ground.

The waves of endless lizards parted as the knight stepped forward, the massive sword grinding on the stone street as he dragged it behind him.

“Oh? Finally going to give up?” Esis shouted at him, the dozen Firestorm behind her drawing back their bows, but holding their fire.

The knight didn’t reply, again lifting his weapon in the air above his head.

“Get ready!” Esis shouted.

Another order to charge?

No, something this time was different. The knight brought his other hand up to grasp the sword’s hilt, then slid his left foot forward.

“Begone,” the voice called, and the knight brought the sword down in the powerful swing.

A thunderous crack echoed off the buildings as the ground shattered and razor-sharp spikes of ice burst forward like a raging bull.

El’s breath caught as the ice raced down the street, more and more spikes growing and reaching for the Firestorm as they tried to dodge. Icicles grew from each other at impossible angles, never ceasing, filling the wide street with an impassible thicket.

Esis was the first to take a spear through the chest as she tried to weave around the main column, but she didn’t even have time to scream before she was fully encased in an icy shell.

The others tried to run. Some tried to fly up, to join El in the sky, but the lances of ice were just too fast, catching them before they got more than fifty feet. Still others thought to dodge inside or behind buildings, but the ever-growing battering ram of icy spikes tore through the stone buildings like paper.

One by one, all were caught, and just like that, eighteen frozen Firestorm hung impaled on the frozen barbs.