It was madness to attack in the darkness, but through her connection Alize witnessed the Kogalok commanders lining the wetland and in their eyes she saw all their Soulless soldiers. Alize scoured the people revealed to her mind as their cries mounted to clamor. Now that the Kogaloks knew her location, they had no reason to postpone their attack.

Unexpectedly a familiar face appeared in the throngs – Benay, the leader of the Eastern Clan. “We’re coming to you!” Benay shouted in her mind. They were nearby, already mounting their horses.

But before Alize could trace her further, the uproar of her own clan sisters roused her. All around the swamp Kogaloks emerged from the forest shadows, surging like a flood towards the Hrumi.

The women rushed to arm themselves, unleashing countless soft twangs of arrow fire. The Kogalok forces coalesced from the expanding darkness, hundreds of Soulless men and women walking all with the same footsteps. Their steady rhythm taunted that all the Hrumi efforts were about to be proved futile.

The arrows kept firing, but not a soldier fell.

Essa mounted her horse to command the archers. Under her instructions, a second wave of arrows fired.

Again they failed to reach their targets.

The blades of the Kogaloks glistened in the frail moonlight as they tightened their circle around the Hrumi.

Alize turned and nearly jumped out of her skin to confront the pale-faced Conjurer standing next to her. This time he was barely translucent and looked almost real enough to fight. And finally Alize felt ready for him.

“Child,” he said, a twisted smile growing on his lips, “I will destroy this entire clan. What a waste that the Hrumi bind your souls out of reach. Executions are so much more tedious.”

Alize twisted her dagger in her hands and drove it through his heart, finding only air. Still she did not stumble. “Spare them if it is me that you want!” she shouted.

“Ah, now was that so difficult?” The man said softly. “You know where to find me.”

And Alize did – she could sense him making his way towards the Temple.

“Better hurry,” he sniggered as he faded from Alize’s vision.

She took two deep breaths and reassessed the situation.

At that moment a large boom reverberated across the wetland. All eyes lifted to trace an arch of light that left the Kogaloks perimeter and swung over the trees like a fiery moon. It reached the apex of its arc and began gathering speed as it sank towards the Hrumi. The shouting and the rush did little to protect the women in its trajectory and the women screamed together as the fireball landed. Smoke seethed forth with the acrid smell of charred flesh.

Alize turned to her gaze to the Kogalok lines in dismay only to see another fireball launched. All around the Hrumi were yelling. Alize faced the enclosing Kogalok circle and racked her mind for something she could do. Her fingertips tingled.

So in the darkness and the heat Alize inhaled deeply and tried to find her center the way she had once found Onder’s. The fireball crested in the sky and she touched a power inside herself so strong it almost burned her. But she hardened her resolve and grabbed it, picturing the shield she needed and oblivious to the ancient language on her lips.

Within the span of a blink she cast her spell outwards as a great protective dome. It illuminated the sky for an instant before the fireball crashed its boundary and smeared down the side. Alize pushed the shield with her mind to grow until it hit the shield protecting the approaching onslaught of Kogaloks. There it tensed for a moment before shattering the Kogalok defenses.

“Essa order the arrow fire now!” Alize cried and Essa echoed her instructions to the clan. This time the arrows broke through.

Just as the Soulless reached the Hrumi lines.

Alize wielded her dagger in and out of men’s flesh, quickly losing count. This was the purpose of the Hrumi training and in some morbid way the action was mindless. The Kogaloks surrounding her were strong, but their armor left them slow and Alize’s dagger found the soft spots in their necks and armpits.

The echoes within her drew her attention to one man in particular, approaching from behind. Each sensed the other’s proximity in the volumes of echoes.

Alize whirled to face him.

“Have you come to the defeat me?” the Soul-Eater laughed as he tossed his boulder mace from one hand to the other. “You’re just a little girl.”

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“Say that again.” Alize sneered. She darted forward, slashing him in the cheek before twisting his mace with her dagger to disarm him.

He maneuvered, his bared teeth the only testament to his shock. And Alize knew he would not underestimate her a second time.

As she assumed her attack stance once more, something curious happened. The Soul-Easter raised his arms, fists clenched, and all around her Alize saw a faint glow emit from the Kogalok soldiers. She dared not look away from him but in the corner of her eye she recognized the small furls of gray magic. They pulled away in clumps from the soldiers to shoot towards the Soul-Eater before her.

His roar erupted like a volcano as the magic inundated him. Then he lowered his gaze back to Alize’s level. His bloodshot eyes focused on her alone. When he blinked, his skin fissoned like riven earth, revealing the glowing gray magic pulsing underneath.

“I said,” his lips turned up in a sneer, “you’re just a little girl.”

Before Alize could respond she buckled under a blast of heat he threw at her. She yelled, careening backwards. Immediately Kogaloks from all directions amassed on top of her, their weapons pointed for her face, neck, stomach and heart but Alize shouted a word of command that she did not recognize, tossing them from her like dead leaves on the breeze.

She rolled over just in time to avoid having her skull crushed on the Soul-Eater’s mace. As he wrenched it from the ground she stabbed his arm hard and prayed he had not been trained to fight with both hands. More men tried to attack her from her perimeter but they could not reach her without getting repelled as before. It was just Alize and the Soul-Eater.

She groaned inwardly as he switched the mace from his right to left hand and drew a three-pronged dagger in his right. He barreled towards her and she twisted to engage his bad arm with her weapon while dodging his maces’ wild strikes. It whizzed past her shoulder and she felt the jagged edges digging lines into her flesh.

But he had overstretched himself to get the hit and it gave Alize the opening she needed. She plunged her dagger into his chest and used all her force to drag it down, feeling the sheering scraping of his rib bones against the buried blade. He screamed and his magic flung Alize off of him. The landing knocked the wind from her lungs, but she lurched to her feet, her determination yet intact.

Graceless steps brought her to kneel beside the dying man. The putrid stink of his exposed innards almost made her sick but she bent over his face to hear the words he was mumbling.

“It doesn’t matter if you take it from me now,” he snarled with the little breath he had left, “Our master shall have the echoes in the end.”

“What a nice little story,” Alize heaved.

But the captain gasped for breath and around her the trees cried out in warning.

“Back up!” Alize called to the women surrounding her. “Now!” The captain glowed gray and Alize had only to guess what it was.

Within seconds the gray magic rippled through him and burst into Alize, consuming her even as she tried to use her white magic to cleanse it. She fell to the ground twisting.

Deep inside her the white magic rebelled against the gray and slowly began to deracinate it away from where it had embedded itself to Alize’s essence. The pain gripped Alize beyond anything she had ever known until all at once the gray magic flew from her. It shot into the distance.

Alize lay gasping and she struggled against the darkness that threatened to engulf her.

Then Sosje was beside her, helping her to stand again. With one Soul-Eater dead, his army of Soulless lost their authority. Their bodies stood swaying in the wetland, bereft of any purpose. But so many more were still fighting, battles still raging around them. In the distance Alize could hear a chorus of whistles directing the province armies. The night blanketed the world and the ephemeral stars and the stable constellations wept together at the violence.

“You’ve got to do something for me, Sosje,” Alize rasped. “The Sargon we released – Kell. He’s due east, at a Magi encampment.” With Onder’s shield destroyed, she could see the echo bearers as clearly as they could see her. “Find him - tell him I need his Mage companion at the Temple.”

Alize expected her sister to object but she bowed simply to indicate she understood. She disappeared into the throng.

Alize’s attention shifted immediately. In the distance, thundering hooves signaled Benay’s approach with the eastern clan. Alize broke from the lines and ran to meet her. It was not only Benay’s presence she sensed converging on the wetland, but many echo bearers drawn to her own guiding light.

Benay brought her horse right up to Alize, halting him with precise control. She released the reigns and smoothed down her wild hair. “Sister,” she called, “I have seen the gray magic wielder for weeks. He seeks to unite the echoes.”

“They are fated for me.” Alize answered, still disbelieving that the world had cast her in this role.

“Can you call them?”

But she did not have to. When Benay’s feet hit the ground, she instinctively performed the ceremonial sign of subordination. The action set her alight as the Eastern Clan’s echoes seeped forth.

A regal man bearing medals appeared besides Benay. He bowed to Alize and she absorbed the echoes that showered her. His presence in her mind’s eye disappeared. Many faces faded from her consciousness as white flashes of light pulled themselves from their bearers in the crowd, all of them transferring to Alize.

Alize accepted them without introspection, despite the pressure building in her head. She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to manage the pain.

The ensuing earthquake only hastened the echo transmissions. Their sparks glowed brighter than the fires still burning in the wetland until they merged within Alize.

She had taken the world and internalized it.

Alize leaned over and vomited.

And still the Kogaloks kept coming. Recovering, Alize searched her consciousness for any weapon to use against them. But the true enemy stood waiting for her. “I’m going to the Temple!” she called to those surrounding her, “Help me forge a path!”

She took an Eastern horse and urged him forward, attacking all the Kogaloks that confronted her. Hrumi and soldiers of every kingdom flanked her in the fore, blocking the Kogalok attacks that surged against them.

In her mind, the gray magic bearer’s presence remained menacing, watching Alize’s procession. He approached the Temple, intent on the glowing light of the Priestess within. Alize drove her horse forward but a Kogalok caught it with his jagged blade and the beast let out a shrill cry as it fell. Alize barely missed getting trapped underneath its tumbling body as she repelled the Kogalok’s attack. Once he was dispatched Alize turned her gaze upwards to the beckoning Temple. Now she would have to move on foot.