Wearily, I threw myself back up into the air and sailed over the robot carnage of the battlefield. Here and there, damaged bots still tried their evil best to do bodily harm to my people. Grace and Claih were already moving out between the scrap, putting magical bullets through processing cores.
Eilian was standing atop the corpse of the huge kingbane, her sword still drawn and ready. Her eyes were scanning the forest back the way the robots had co. Her stance was still guarded. What did she know?
“Hey,” I greeted her, firing a quick impulse below to slow my fall.
She gave a quick smile, but her attention quickly returned to our surroundings. “Hey there red. I’d spend so ti trying to get into your pants but we aren’t safe yet. Your mother is out there stalling the mages. She’ll be here soon.”
Alard, I sent a tendril of power down to the grass at the valley floor and cast my communion spell. There was definitely soone coming, but the plants were confused about who and what. “What? Mages? And my mother?”
“The robots aren’t here by coincidence Ryn, they’re here because that absolute bastard Fennimore lured them here,” she said, long canines flashing as she sneered at the horizon. “They planned to hit you while you were recuperating from fighting the steel ones. Esra and I arrived to ruin their plans.”
“Mom’s here?” I asked excitedly, forgetting the part about Fennimore for a second.
“Leading Fennimore here where it’s an even fight, yeah,” Eilian said.
My stomach froze over, hardening into a single solid block of ice. “Here? What about my people?”
The obrec mage stilled in her observations of the scree covered slopes, slowly turning to look at the massed Avonside militia. “Oh, cock,” she muttered, then with a sudden burst of urgency, looked at . “Get them moving, now. We need them as far away as possible when the enemy gets here. They’ll be nothing but fodder.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. With a burst of adrenaline, I took hold of spaceti with a spell and my ntal fist, and crushed it. The world folded like I’d just swapped my eyes for 360 degree caras, then snapped back to normal with a crack.
Troy and the Militia general dude both choked and shouted at my sudden and violent arrival, almost knocking over the field table they were using to look at their maps. Around them, officers and various other people all swore and scattered away from the sound of my arrival.
“Troy,” I said with a no-nonsense, almost icy tone. “Get everyone to fall back. Now. We have enemy mages incoming.”
“Why would we fall back?” the militia general asked, frowning slightly. His tone was more confused than confrontational though, so I didn’t bite back.
“Because Eilian, Grace, and I can handle them,” I explained quickly, wishing they’d just get moving. Ugh, but if I were them, I wouldn’t just rush off blindly. People generally like to know why they are required to do sothing. Human nature and all that. With a sigh, I relaxed my stance and gave both him and Troy a look. “You will all just be collateral damage. Fennimore and his cohort are the ones who lured the robots here, and they plan to slaughter everyone who isn’t scientifically useful so they can control the tech here. You need to get everyone away from the battlefield before we no longer have a militia. Please?”
The militia guy seed skeptical, but Troy gave a sharp nod and turned to the officers. “Sound the retreat, right now. We need to be out of sight.”
With Troy ready to do what I needed, I teleported to Grace and gently took hold of her forearm, stopping her as she moved towards the next fatally damaged steel one. “Grace, can you and Claih go and hide sowhere with good sightlines of this area? Fennimore and a bunch of his cronies are coming. I think we’ll need you both sniping and moving to help us win this.”
To emphasise the point, I channelled a footstep dampening spell into her maginetic shield. It wasn't the most effective spell in the world — it was one that I had yet to refine — but it should give her an edge. My girlfriend glanced at the spell as it took hold, then up at Eilian.
“Yeah, on it,” she said, giving my hand a quick squeeze of affection. Then she was calling out to Claih, relaying my request.
Finally, I teleported back to Eilian. “They’re getting ready. Grace and Claih, the obrec with the magic guns, are going to hide themselves up high so they can attempt to snipe a mage or two.”
“Good idea,” she said, throwing a smile. “You have a beautiful mind to go with that pretty face.”
Back when we’d first t Eilian, I’d felt shy and uncomfortable about her attention. Now though, it was easy to laugh and roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. How many mages did they bring?”
“Five, I believe. Fennimore, his new apprentice, and three of his more independent and experienced mages,” she told , eyes sparkling with mirth despite being on alert for the enemy. “Everyone that he can trust not to betray him, kill him, and steal all the secrets of your ho for themselves.”
“Ah,” I grinned, flexing my fingers in preparation. “An awful person’s plan ruined by a lack of trust in his people. Classic.”
Eilian nodded once and seed to lean forward, staring into the distance. “Yes, and I believe that our cue is coming shortly.”
Along one ridge, a bright star began to flicker along, blinking into existence in one place, then vanishing to appear closer to us.
I took a deep breath. “Is that—”
“Esra?” Eilian murmured, gripping her sword tighter. “Yes.”
“I’m going to go now. They’re close enough,” I said decisively, already scooping up power into my splayed fingers like my magic was so sort of viscous liquid.
“Your valley, your people, your mother,” she shrugged. “I’ll make sure Fennimore’s people don’t hurt yours.”
I shook my head as energy began to flood into it. “My sister is back there. She has more than enough skill with defensive spells to keep them safe.”
My plant form ca to the fore while I worked on casting my spell. Dimly I heard her grunt and turn to look back, but I was already caught up in the montous effort of pulling this much power from my grove. More stars had joined the first on the ridge, flinging spells that lted stone and burned foliage in passing.
Esra was firing back even as her brightly glowing shields took hit after hit. She was even stronger than when she’d first beco my magemother. Living out in the wild reaches of the naless garden had increased her power.
God, I was tired. My grove was almost entirely drained of storm magic even before the battle, but now it was empty — nothing more to give. I guess I’d be fighting with just my usual power.
I clenched my fist into a ball and pulled a spell into my now fully manifested plant body. At least my own natural protective aura didn't fight .
I gasped and swayed on my feet. Oh, rcy… that felt good. It was a simple enhancent spell, but I needed it. Because like, I figured that spells were going to be flying hot and heavy soon, so it was probably a good idea to just dodge most of them. Faster reflexes and muscles would do the job where shields might falter.
Now to make a dramatic entrance.
I grinned, glanced down at my singed and battered silver outfit, then summoned my floating energy blades into a flower pattern behind . Then, I jumped off the massive Kingbane.
Space warped, then reford with a thump, depositing right in front of one of the brightly glowing mages that were battling along the ridge. She was an older woman, or at least she looked it. Her silver-red hair was up in a tight bun on the back of her head, and she wore a ball gown altered for more strenuous activities than a waltz.
My blades moved with terrifying speed, coming around to my front to form a sort of umbrella. I ca out of my teleport with a substantial amount of speed from my jump and that all ca crashing against the woman’s magical shielding. Sparks exploded out in all directions as the opposing energies clashed.
With a shove of her hand, she sent out a wave of force that disengaged her from my blades. My feet touched down against warm stone, and I stepped forward, throwing blade after blade at her in a vicious series of attacks that gave her no room to make her own.
I was high off the triumph of destroying the steel ones, and I’d be damned if so random backwards-ass noble would take that away from .
A flick of my wrist sent three blades around behind, pinning her between the points. Her red eyes went wide with fear when I began to squeeze. Working with frenzied hand movents, she cast sothing, then raised her eyes to the sky beseechingly.
I threw myself to the side on pure instinct. Lightning smashed down, slling of ozone and molten rock, and I was forced to pull my blades back in order to land on them. Flat side up, of course.
They acted like a set of stairs, shifting in coordinated, scintillating patterns to keep aloft. My foe didn’t wait for to touch down again — I was on the back foot. Thump, thump, thump. She threw three fireballs at in rapid succession, each of which I blocked with a blade of energy. Goddess, how uninspiring was that? Boring old fireballs. She needed to apply a little imagination to her spells.
Sothing like, say, this.
It was another one of those spells that would only work once, and it probably would have been better to use it directly on Fennimore. Still, I had no idea if it would work, so… may as well test it, right?
It was such a simple spell. Basically a glorified pump. A pump that ford a thin separating mbrane of near invisible energy around the target, then began to suck all the oxygen out of the bubble.
The mage woman saw the spell form around her and threw her energy into reinforcing her shields, expecting so sort of attack. When nothing happened, she frowned in wary suspicion and threw another fireball out, aid at and the bubble alike. It passed harmlessly through.
She blinked, and then seeming to put the bubble out of her mind, unleashed a torrent of fire, ice, and lightning. I dodged what I could, then blocked what I could not with my blades. I pretended to tire, getting sluggish in my movents, and even let a fireball through my blades to splash over a reactive shield.
Seeing the fireball make contact with my passive defenses, she began to throw even more, and my goodness it was hard to hold back my feral grin. I had an idea. I let her think I had so sort of weakness, blocking the ice spikes and lightning strikes with seeming ease, but not the fireballs.
Another mage teleported into our duel like a rude slap to the face, and I jumped backwards to avoid a lance of sunlight that tore through the air with deadly purpose.
“Long ti no see,” Jas said venomously. “I figured you’d be stronger than Maud. Guess we were all worried for nothing, huh?”
His words were followed by another lance, that I deflected with a well-placed blade of magenta energy. “You should have just left us alone,” I replied, with a cold, seething rage. “It would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, you’re about to see just how much I’ve changed…”
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