Fire Within: Book Two of Fire and Stone (Stories of Fire and Stone 2) (37 page)

Meanwhile, Tseka was busy defending them. The attacks were coming from different directions, so she had her hands full flinging up shields to absorb the various attacks that were thrown at them. Another fireball exploded against a briefly erected shield, and then she put up a series of smaller ones to shatter several spikes of ice that hurtled towards them. A bolt of pure energy came from a different angle, but she managed to block it in time too—if only just. Then she almost bowled Erizen off the hilltop when he popped up beside her—evidently he’d bounced back from the attack already.

Erizen had personal shields up and sought to find their opponents using magic, but they were shielded too, and it wasn’t working. Then he tried to track back where they were by the trajectory of their attacks, but the mages seemed to be moving around as they attacked, making that tactic of limited use as well. The light of the burning castle was making their position very obvious while casting a shadow for the other mages to hide in. Since Toman was busy concentrating on creating something useful, it took a minute for the Animator to realize Erizen’s struggle.

“Tseka! Erizen needs to know where the enemy is!” Toman yelled at her. She alone would be able to find them with her heat-sensing abilities, but she was too busy shielding against attacks to do anything about it. Fortunately she didn’t need her hands to shield, so they were free to point.

“There!” she shouted, pointing. Two balls of crackling green light immediately streaked in that direction, rotating around each other even as they sped out and provided a bit of illumination. It looked like they were going to go wide when a man’s arm was illuminated at the outer edge of their goal, but then the orbs changed direction abruptly like they’d been yanked to the side. The two orbs hit the mage’s shield and stuck, pulsing irregularly and crackling. The mage’s expression was panicky as the orbs sucked at the shields, forcing him to pour energy into them to maintain them. The orbs looked vicious, and he didn’t want to let them in. But even as they found the one mage, the others pressed their attacks.

“Where else?” Erizen shouted. Tseka hissed in frustration.

“They’re—” She barely blocked an attack in time with her concentration divided.

“They’re hiding! One there, on the move!” She tracked one man with her finger and Erizen fired green orbs again, but this time it went wide and missed entirely. Meanwhile, the other mage finally found that if he dismissed his shield, the orbs vanished with it. He’d been severely weakened by the attack, but now the orbs likely wouldn’t work again. Erizen cursed—he didn’t want to make a light, since that would mark them as targets to any other mages in the area too. No doubt Moloch’s underlings were under orders to kill them by any means necessary. On the other hand, at this rate they were attracting more attention anyways. Erizen was about to take measures when something massive descended from above.

The ground actually shook when the gargantuan stone creature landed between them and the mages. The dim light illuminated four reptilian legs, two stone canopies that served as wings, and a hundred spikes lining the beast’s back. It swung its head around, pointing its lethally-toothed head in the direction of the attacking mages. They could practically feel the terror emanating from the mages—the tables had just turned. Their attacks were now directed at the stone dragon, but nothing did much damage to solid stone.

Tseka remained wary, but she spared a moment to shoot an impressed look at Toman.

“Where did that come from?” she asked.

“It’s been tracking us from above,” Toman replied. “I’ve been keeping it handy every time any of us have gone out.”

“I thought we were as high as was safe to fly when Esset was flying us,” Tseka said, confused but still keeping an eye out for incoming attacks.

“They’re not alive—thin air means nothing to them. Plus I long ago figured out that they fly using magic, not natural means, so other factors don’t apply either. It was so high we would barely have seen it even as high as we were. Why do you think it took so long to get here?” Toman replied. As he spoke, he turned to look down the other side of hill, trying to locate Esset—how far had he been flung? Was he okay? He couldn’t see him amidst the rubble on the side of the hill. Toman finally turned and grabbed Tseka’s arm.

“I’m finding Esset,” he said. Without waiting for her to object—splitting up was dangerous, after all, even with the mages preoccupied with the stone dragon—he headed down the hill. He picked his way down carefully, keeping an eye out for danger even as he glanced back up the hill to try to track the trajectory Esset may have been flung in. But it wasn’t until he was almost right on top of him that he spotted him at all.

Esset was tangled in a bramble—his skin was scored by the thorns, but conversely, the bramble had saved him from more serious injury by catching him and cushioning his fall. He also looked scorched, but not precisely burnt. He was also unconscious. Toman rushed over to him as quickly as he could.

He was almost to him when he found himself nose-to-nose with a fiery wolf. Its breath stank of molten metal and ash. The heat of its proximity was harsh on his face, but more concerning was its snarl. Its teeth, glowing like super-heated metal, were clearly visible, and its growl sounded like fire devouring the dried grass of a field. Toman had never been so close to one of Esset’s more deadly summons before, having always given them a respectful distance in the past. He’d also never been the object of one’s aggression.

“Esset!” Toman called to his brother. He wanted to be heard by his brother, but he tried to keep his voice low enough that he wouldn’t draw attention them. To his great relief, the wolf vanished into a wisp of ash before him.

“Sorry. Didn’t know it was you,” he heard Esset say.

“I should hope not,” Toman grumbled, shaking off the cold chill of fear as he took the last couple steps over to the brambles. The first thing he did was put his hands out to try to animate the brambles to get them out of the way, but he couldn’t animate something that was already alive. Apparently, despite the pale, dry appearance of the bush, it was still very much alive. Abandoning the attempt, Toman instead got his belts to undo themselves from around his torso and flow into the bushes to carefully wind around the branches and pull them back, breaking them where necessary.

Esset waited patiently while Toman worked, knowing that moving prematurely would just earn him more scratches and further entanglement.

“Come on,” Toman finally said, holding out his hand to Esset. Esset grabbed his brother’s hand and let him haul him out, wincing as several bruises, scratches, and strained muscles were aggravated. He was going to hurt tomorrow. He hurt
now
. But he shoved thoughts of pain aside and concentrated on what needed doing.

Toman and Esset made their way back up to the top of the hill without drawing notice—they did it so well that Tseka nearly bashed them off the hill with one of her shields when they popped up beside her. She hissed at them, but both could tell she was glad to see them.

“Let’s finish this,” Esset said darkly. The alien syllables of summoning poured from his mouth, and half a dozen fiery panthers materialized around them. They opened their jaws and roared in unison, calling the sound of a fiery maelstrom and illuminating the entire hillside before them. Then they leapt into motion in a show of deadly beauty and sinuous grace—providing sinews could be made of fire. They left behind ashen footprints, unseen in the dark, as they surged down the hill unerringly toward their targets.

Suddenly a brilliant, unnatural light appeared in the sky above them. A silver glow was cast upon the hilltop, bathing them in an eerie light—and making them even bigger targets than they already were. Toman looked at Erizen.

“It’s not me!” the mage objected, seeing the accusation in the look. “But now I might as well make a few of my own.” He raised his hands and similar orbs flowered over the rest of the area, so everyone else was as illuminated as they were.

The little skirmish had transformed into a fully pitched battle. More enemy mages arrived by the minute, despite the bodies of their fallen comrades littering the hill. Esset’s stomach churned when he saw them; he hated war, hated killing. And although he had known they’d been killing the mages in the darkness, it was still a blow to see the results.

I’m sorry I’m not strong enough, Dad,
Esset thought, but now it was definitely kill or be killed.

Four mages had congregated together and were working in concert to keep back Toman’s stone dragon and one of Esset’s fiery panthers. When the others saw their success, they began banding together too. Dark Mages—and particularly blood-path mages, which these no doubt were—weren’t usually very good at working together, but they were managing out of necessity. Still, their breed was too paranoid and greedy to work together to their maximum capability, which was all for the best, as far as Esset was concerned.

“This is turning into more than we bargained for,” Tseka hissed, warding off several more attacks that were coming their way.

“This is a boon,” Erizen said, conjuring another pair of green globes and sending them towards the shields of one group. The mage in charge of shields in the group started panicking; the orbs would suck him dry of magic if he didn’t dispel the shields, but if he did dispel them, the fiery panthers attacking their shields would get in. In the end he bailed on his companions and banished the shields, re-erecting personal ones immediately. One of his comrades died, failing to put up shields in time, but the other two were quick enough—still, their group was split again, and they couldn’t fight as effectively.

“How so?” Esset asked, watching Erizen repeat the tactic with another group.

“This is another portion of Moloch’s power-base. If we kill most of his mages, he is even weaker yet. He can’t be everywhere at once, so he
needs
these mages,” Erizen fired more green orbs at another group. These ones were smarter—as the one mage dispelled his shield, another created a shockwave to drive their attackers back for a few moments until a new one could be erected.

Beside Erizen, Toman finally finished animating the rough earthen golem he’d been making and sent it into the fray. It would be blasted to pieces in seconds, no doubt, but it was something. Really, Esset’s summons were doing the most damage. The panthers threw themselves at shields with unbridled ferocity, knowing that if they battered them enough, they’d break open so they could access the vulnerable inner bits.

Erizen was helping, but Toman knew that he wasn’t fighting at his full capacity. He was about to growl something at the arrogant man when reinforcements arrived. Two more stone dragons plummeted from the sky, each targeting a group of mages and hitting their shields full-force. Toman was pleased with their timing—he hadn’t expected them so soon, since they’d been further afield. But it was just as well, since more mages had just arrived too—Toman wondered just how many mages Moloch really had. He never would have fathomed this many, and were they all even here? Then, with a shock, he realized that the four of them were holding off the entire crowd all on their own.

He remembered the Baliyan war, the icy hell consisting of battle after battle against undead legions and the necromancers who’d raised and commanded them. He and Esset had played a huge role in the war, but they couldn’t have fought it alone. Toman wondered if they could have had they been as strong as they were now. But there were more immediate concerns, and he didn’t have long to wonder. He glanced up, checking on his team.

Tseka didn’t seem to be tiring yet, although Toman was keeping an eye on her even as he put his gloves against the earth to animate another golem. Erizen kept to his limited contributions and Esset—Toman felt a moment of concern for his brother.