Spellscribed: Conviction (35 page)

The spell flared white hot light, and the concussive force blew the attacking hornet, the top half of the tent, and all the sand around said tent, fifty feet into the sky. The blast caught several other bugs along the way, scattering them across the desert. Though the suns were starting their decline into the horizon, they were still not going to cross for another few hours.

As sand and bug bits rained down around him, he spotted his staff spinning through the air from the impact. He held out his hand and willed his staff to come to him. It froze in midair for a split second, before shooting straight into his hand with a sharp slap. He had to incapacitate them without setting them on fire, or they’d be bathed in flaming bug guts before they could duck for cover.

Endrance swept his staff in an arc before him trailing the head of it across the sands at his feet. He didn’t know many other ways to use the staff, but he figured the spirit within the stave was intelligent enough to figure out his commands if he was a bit vague. He willed a wall up to give him time to check on the others and to think.

The sand under his feet poured up, leeching it out from under him and the surrounding area, exposing the remaining tents, forming a fifteen foot wall of sand that encircled Endrance and his group. Immediately, several hornets hit it, and to his surprise they started burrowing straight through the wall with their serrated blade limbs. They acted like effective shovels on their arms and they were through his defense in seconds.

Joven surged out of the now exposed area, covered in bits of insect and raising his axe in one hand, the other cradling Giselle in his arm. Bridget stooped as she came out of her tent, hauling Tanya by her collar. She had her heavy blade out in her wooden arm, hauling her out of danger. Endrance rushed back to Selene, trying to lift her but he was not strong enough to do so easily.

Dozens of sand hornets were coming through the wall, and over it. Endrance powered up his wards and turned to face the coming swarm. He needed a weapon that could hit the target and not cause them to explode. He wished he had learned something more useful, like a sword, to deal with these kinds…

He had an idea. He thrust his staff into the sand, leaving it standing straight as he channeled power for the spell he dredged out of an impression he had not wanted to look into before. The spell-form in his mind delivered what he was looking for without any residual personality, and he had the spell in the forefront of his mind, as if he had spent years practicing it.

“
Spiritarmus!
” Endrance cried, forming the final gesture with both hands and swinging them out in an arc to either side.

Twelve translucent purple silhouettes of a longsword manifested along the arc he made with his hands; flitting out from there to home in on an attacking insect. The first few were skewered right down the middle, the blade sliding through chitin as easily as a hot knife through snow, straight to the phantom crossbar, caught against chitin and pinned the insects into the sand.

The spell drained some of his aura, but surprisingly little, compared to the power that Gullin had been draining to fight in the days before. He cast it again, throwing out another dozen blades at the next wave of bugs charging through the remains of his sand wall.

Then, surprisingly the swarm halted. The half dozen halfway through the sand halted, backing out and disappearing in a rush of wings and buzzing. Endrance checked the circle around them first, willing his staff to repair and reinforce the wall.

“We need to get out of here.” Joven said, panting. “I’ll carry Tanya. Bridget, you get Selene.” Joven shoved Giselle into his arms.

“What about our tents?” Endrance asked.

“Leave them!” Joven shouted. “Grab your pack and go!”

Endrance scrambled to grab his pack, and managed to sling Selene’s things onto a shoulder. He picked up Giselle again, glad she was still a child, and willed his staff to come to him. It slid across the sand, leaving a straight line as it remained upright. He caught it with his left hand, and carefully stuck it through the straps on his pack, so it wouldn’t fall free as they ran.

They moved south, Endrance dropping the walls of sand as they charged up to it. The insects had retreated, but they were still nearby. As they ran, the bugs seemed to pursue just out of sight, occasionally popping into view for a few scant seconds and then disappearing behind a dune, keeping pace with them.

Minutes later, Endrance felt something crunch under his shoes and looked down. The sand in the area had been partially melted, forming a crust of crystalline structures that… looked like glass. Endrance looked back up and realized that they hadn’t been looking at a heat mirage reflecting the ground back at them, but rather they were literally looking at a sea of once-molten sand.

“Joven!” Endrance cried out. “We are in some deep trouble!”

“Tell me about it!” the barbarian huffed. “They’re right behind us!”

“No, that’s not the only problem!” Endrance cried out, trying to keep his breath steady. “Do you know how hot it has to be to melt sand into glass?”

Joven slowed only slightly, looking down. “A lot?” he shouted back.

Bridget grunted, carrying Selene over both shoulders. “Like forge hot!” she shouted. “We are screwed if we’re still out here when the suns come back up!”

The ground beneath them crunched as the weak glass crust over the sand couldn’t hold their weight. The sound of several insect legs jabbing the ground from all around them only spurred them to keep going. “We have only one night to cross this entire area!” Endrance shouted. “And then we need to find shelter right away when we get to the other side, or we might as well lay down here!”

“Screw that!” Bridget shouted on the exhale. “I am not just giving up! We will make it!”

“The others have been poisoned, but I think we can treat them if we can get left alone…” Joven started. A rumble in the ground made him stop. “What the hells was that?” he muttered, slowing.

Endrance slowed down, checking behind him as they slipped into a more defensive posture. The glass encrusted sand behind them was swelled up, protruding as if a new dune had risen thirty feet behind them in only seconds. As Endrance looked, it started rolling towards them. Something  huge was underneath the sand and it was coming right for them.

“Run!” Endrance screamed, taking off at full speed. He had seen the sand worm they had killed, and knew that this one was far wider than that one; and that one had been big enough that it could have eaten the whole group in one bite.

Bridget and Joven followed closely after, their breath coming hard and ragged. For several minutes they ran, the sound of their boots crunching into glassy sand the only sound, accompanied by the rumble of a huge object burrowing behind them.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit…” Endrance exhaled as he ran, his exclamation becoming a running mantra. He couldn’t afford to stop, or even slow down.

Then their boots stopped breaking glass as they ran on; the stuff had layered so thickly that their frantic footfalls didn’t do more than crack it. Behind them, the glass was broken into the air in sheets, as the burrowing creature rolled on through, barely impeded.

The Sea of Glass was probably beautiful, but they had hardly any time to take in the sights. The entire area was a humongous expanse of molten sand that had been repeatedly melted and cooled, every day and night, for thousands of years; leaving amazing crests and valleys of rough textured solid glass several feet thick where they were. It only got thicker, the closer to the center they reached. Irregularities in the condition and components of the sand made the sea breathtaking, with warm splashes of reds, oranges, deep blues and purples; like an eternal sunset painted into the land. Endrance would have like to have had the time to enjoy the colors, but at the moment, he had only the spare thought to be thankful that the glass wasn’t slick, like all the manmade stuff was.

Endrance’s lungs burned, his back and legs were sharply aching with the effort of carrying Giselle, and both his and Selene’s packs. He was pushing too hard to keep up the pace. Joven and Bridget weren’t looking too good either. It was already a tough feat, running carrying a full grown adult on their shoulders. They also had to run at full speed and carry their fallen comrade’s equipment.

The burrowing thing behind them slowed, descending beneath the surface of the glass once it was too thick to break through, leaving behind a trail of broken and cracked glass fragments. They kept running for several seconds, but Endrance’s pace slowed to a stop.

He tried to catch his breath, but everything was getting hazy. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he sank to his knees, panting.

Joven and Bridget slowed, turning back. “Come on!” Joven panted. “We can’t stop now.”

Endrance shook his head. “Wait.” He tried to exclaim, getting out no more than a harsh whisper. “It can’t follow us this far.”

“We need to go. I can’t carry Selene forever.” Bridget stated. “She’s not as light as you think.”

Endrance thought his vision started to stabilize, but then everything blurred again as he felt like he was vibrating.

“Endrance! Move!” Bridget screamed.

The ground underneath him cracked, and whatever it was that had been chasing them came straight up at him, exploding through two feet thick glass and sending him and Giselle through the air. It burst through the glass shell, opening a twenty foot wide hole in the Sea of Glass.

The thing clambered out adroitly, sand pouring off its exposed carapace. Endrance hit the glass with a crunch that Joven hoped was only glass and rolled to a stop, somehow still shielding Giselle from the fall with his body.

The insect was easily fifty feet long, and looked roughly like the sand hornets from before, except that its waist was stockier and the forelegs had sharper, non-serrated digging blades that were longer than scythes. Its mouth was a ring of teeth as long as Joven’s forearm, and it had dark, multifaceted eyes that reddened near the center of each facet. It had no wings, but the legs were much more powerful.

“Queen?” Bridget asked, backing away.

Joven crouched, setting Tanya on the glass floor. “I don’t know.” He said, adjusting his grip on the axe with both hands. They were down to just the two of them, and both were already tired from fighting, and running. Now they couldn’t run, and they had a gigantic flesh eating insect insisting on ruining their day.

Joven charged forward, his axe held at his side for a horizontal slice. He hoped he could survive long enough to at least hamstring the beast. Maybe Endrance would have the time to escape. Joven stared up at the maw of the giant insect, and felt a trickle of fear; the thing was terrifying.

Joven juked past the downward stab it made at him with one of its blades, swinging his axe at the flat as he spun past it. The milky white steel of his axe clanged off the digging blade like it was metal, throwing him off balance.

“Shit!” Joven exclaimed, rolling out of the way of the creature’s counter-strike with the other blade. The attack sliced into the side of his left pauldron, but Joven didn’t feel any pain.

“
Spiritarmus!
” A voice roared from behind the barbarian, and the queen jerked back, reeling from what sounded like several solid impacts.

“
Spiritarmus! Spiritarmus! Spiritarmus!
” Endrance cried repeatedly, gesturing with one hand and throwing volley after volley of phantom swords. He remained where he had fallen, his other arm cradling Giselle. The weapons could pierce up to the hilt, and then any leftover momentum rocked the insect queen back a few inches. Several dozen blades hit the queen, fading moments later, cutting deep wounds into the creature.

It reeled back, squealing in such a high pitch, that some of it wasn’t audible to Joven. Ichor flowed freely from the injuries, pooling on the glass around him. Joven took the opportunity to wind up and swing hard in an overhand chop. The axe hit the joint where one of its scythe-like front legs joined the body, and it bit in deep. As the queen thrashed, Joven set his feet on the ground and wrenched the handle of his axe. The arm didn’t quite come out of its socket, but it cracked and fluid came pouring copiously out of the joint, the limb falling limp.

“Joven!” Endrance hoarsely shouted. “Get clear!”

The barbarian remembered the fight with the hydra, and ran to the side, using the queen’s body to shield him from its one remaining blade. He felt, rather than directly heard, something coming up behind him and dove, sliding on the pooled ichor. The queen’s stinger stabbed through the air like a naturally grown greatsword, nearly impaling him as he slid across the glass. Joven immediately popped back to his feet, and sprinted as hard as he could, trusting the treads of his boots to keep him from slipping on the goo.

Endrance touched his aura to the power remaining in his bracers, drawing on it to keep him from running dry. He slammed as much power as his meridians could handle into his lightning tattoo, knowing that it was probably going to cost him his hand. His tattooed lines from his chest, down his arm, and to his fingers lit up with brilliant white light, turning the coming suns set into midday for a brief moment. The glass around them lit up like they had been imbued with the suns, turning everything into a momentary brilliant blinding glare.

His hand burned briefly, then went numb as a beam of pure white light kicked him back a foot across the glass and shot through the air. It traveled so fast, that the insect queen had no chance to move or even recognize the attack was coming. The air around them ionized, crackling with static electricity.