It was so deep into the night, even the insects were sleeping. I watched the night sky, my mind on our little group's previous conversations. The others were asleep. Both Silas and Theron were silent. Nyx snored lightly beneath her tent. It was like this every night when it was my turn to keep watch; the assassin was somehow always the loudest sleeper.

I had described magic and its use to Theron in such great detail earlier, that now it wouldn't leave my mind. I had been alone for long enough into my watch that my brain was creating new weird and ridiculous things to focus on. For example, I could wield six elements, which meant I could also wield life and death. Would it be possible to prolong my inevitable early death, much like Valerius and other necromancers had?

Of course it would, I argued with myself. The only difference between Valerius and I was that I was unwilling to feed off of the energy of others. There was a reason necromancy was banned. Leeching energy was almost akin to cannibalism, was it not? And regardless, to learn and use death spells would be to sign my own death sentence.

Crack!

My head whipped to my right to follow the noise, my gold eyes staring into the abyss of the forest, beneath where the light of our campfire flickered off of the leaves. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, shapes began to form, differentiating themselves. For the most part, I only saw the vertical lines of the trees. Perhaps it was only a woodland animal, like it had been so many times before. Perhaps it—

Then, the campfire flickered over the outside edges of the shadow, pushing it back into the forest by a couple of inches. I saw the glimmer of silver on a sharpened point, and immediately thrust my hand out. By the time my arm was straight, the spell was recited. With a zwip, a clear, flickering energy spread out in all directions from my palm, surrounding my body in an egg-shaped orb. A split second later, the arrow that had been meant to kill me bounced harmlessly off the shield, landing in the brush some feet away.

“Company!” I exclaimed, keeping the shield up with my right hand while trying to decide what spell to recite with my left. I heard the others waking to help fight, even as the uncertainty of our attackers still hung like a heavy curtain in the air.

I saw the silver glimmer again. This time, the arrow wasn't meant for me. Before I could decide on a different spell, I was shielding Silas, defending him against the next arrow.

The elf already had his beautiful pearl white bow in his hands, and was firing off arrows.

Arrows. Plural. I refocused on the forest. The would-be assassin had only been the first attacker. Perhaps he had meant to kill me, the look-out, so that the others could be killed quietly; now that his plan had failed, the shadows of his friends grew in the forest until an entire group of orcs were rampaging toward us.

I had heard of orcs. I had seen paintings and drawings of them. Nothing could compare to seeing them in person. In drawings, one cannot see that orcs tower above most men at seven to sometimes eight feet tall, or that their muscles bulge much too far in husks of dark green and grey skin, thick veins threatening to pump their raging blood straight into the air. Drawings cannot recreate the seething hatred that is exuded from the blood red or black irises of the creatures. They were running so fast, their heavy footsteps causing the ground to tremble, even the flames of our campfire shaking in intimidation. Each orc held a weapon that was stained in the blood of previous battles, while more swung heavily from sheaths at their waists. There were no orc archers; the archers in the woods were all human or goblin slaves. Orcs were clearly partial to melee weapons, particularly of the ax, mace, and club varieties. Most of their axes had either holes in the blades or were hooked at the end, ensuring maximum pain and trauma when creating a wound or exiting it.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I knew orcs were distant relatives of other races of elves. So despite how different they looked from humans, I knew they were mortal and could die by battle. I had all of the elements at my disposal, but this close to the forest, I didn't want to use fire and recreate the risky battle at Amere. I needed to remember that forests catch fire much too easily, and that like the orcs, my friends could also die by flame.

Nyx locked her attention onto one of the first orcs to make it to our camp, and engaged him in melee. She was much quicker than him, dodging around most of his weapon swipes that meant to crush bone or break skin and muscle. At the same time, she was slicing and dicing through him with her blades, and he barely noticed.

There was another orc engaged with Theron, who was prickled from Silas's arrows. It was only when one of the arrows went through an eye that he fell.

I decided then that I needed to support my allies rather than attempt to kill the orcs through full force. There were probably fifteen or so orcs, with three slaves left shooting arrows from the edge of the forest. We had only killed one orc and two slaves thus far. I needed to buy my friends time.

Creatius la agua a friz. Water lapped up against the magical barrier above both my palms, before a crackling, sizzling noise began to pop in the air, the water beginning to harden and freeze, the sharp designs of ice clinging to the barriers. I felt a faint coolness on my hands, the ice I held so frozen that the temperature began to leak through the safety of the magic shield.

I hurried over to Nyx, who was still fighting the same orc. The orc noticed me, and sidestepped Nyx to focus on me instead. Perhaps he was tired of getting nowhere fighting her, and wanted to try his hand at me. I thrust my arm toward his legs, and the ice immediately surrounded them, crawling up his legs with a crackle, until he roared in frustration and became stiff, stuck to the ground in one place. It wasn't but a few seconds after that when Nyx was able to slit the orc's throat, hot blood pouring from his wound and running deep red over the bright whitish-blue of the ice below. The deceased orc's red eyes still showed rage, even in death.

The orcs were surrounding Theron. He was holding his own, and had even felled two of them thus far. Silas was still loosing arrows from near the campfire, and had added another orc to his kill count while I had helped Nyx. It was Theron who needed the most help, as he had attracted the most attention by engaging the enemy in melee, where they were most comfortable.

With my remaining ice spell, I froze two of the orcs' legs that were focused on Theron. Because I had split the energy between two targets, the spell didn't quite freeze them to the ground, but it was enough to make them stiff and slow to react, which was enough for Theron to finish them off.

I heard a growl. One of the orcs before me redirected his attention at me, sick of my meddling. He swiped his ax toward my stomach, but I jumped back to avoid it...just barely.

I'm not trained for this. I could hold my own in a fight. I could not go up against an orc physically and win. The orc knew this; most mages were trained to support and complement melee fighters in battle. He wasn't interested in fighting fair. He was interested in killing me.

The ax was swiped again, and this time, when I dodged, I didn't dodge far enough. The sharp, filthy blade missed my stomach, but ended up slicing across both of my arms, which I'd held before me defensively. The pain was immense and biting, and I tried to re-focus myself over my own whimpers as hot blood ran down my arms. The orc smiled, pleased to see he was making progress. Yet another one of Silas's arrows pierced the orc's back as the elf tried to protect me. It was yet another arrow that was ignored in the orc's rage.

The orc went for another swipe. He knew I'd been forced to the defensive; I was getting clumsier and had to spend most of my time defending rather than thinking of an attack.

Focus. You didn't leave Sera just to die here. This time, when the ax started to complete its arc toward my gut, I shielded myself while backing up. Most of the ax's momentum was absorbed by the shield, but it flickered with the force of it. I knew without looking that my light armor had been pierced. Thankfully, I didn't feel any wound on my stomach.

I left the shield up, allowing the spell to continue taking energy from my environment. I knew my energy reserves were running low. It was a dry, calm night. My spells so far had probably taken energy from the exertion of the warm bodies surrounding me, and in the distance, I could see our campfire wavering, and I knew that my magic was taking the energy from its heat. There were still orcs fighting my friends, and I would need to heal myself after the fight. I needed to save all the energy I could...

...or recycle it.