Riposte.Lunge.
That simply and another Satyr was dead. The blood spewing forth in a torrential flood as his heartbeat sprayed his life force in a cascading waterfall of life and essence.
Pirouette.
Dodge.
My body contorted in wondrous and amazing movements that seemed to defy gravity. Spinning kicks. Backbends that allowed swords to pa.s.s over me as I dodged. And my sword always moving. Flickering movements that left cuts and gashes as I whittled down my opponents.
Slowly, we continued to prevail.
Six left.
Five.
Three.
Until finally only the Gorgon stood.
"Enough!" she screamed, panting and gasping for breath. "I"ll admit you are far more deadly than we expected. You"ve just come into your power. I don"t know how you can be this powerful already, but this ends now.
"Daughters of Artemis. Kill them!"
As she finished her command, a group of archers, women who had remained concealed and camouflaged in the canopy of trees, moved to reveal themselves. As one, they raised the bows each held, knocked an arrow, and drew back on bowstrings aiming each of them at me. It seemed like Cedric was going to live a second or two longer than I, a small mercy.
"Did you forget about us?" A voice asked disparagingly. Movement too fast to track and sounds of weapons rubbing against leather, as hidden weapons of unknown origin were drawn and thrown, flashing quickly across the clearing, embedding in the hearts of two of the women that had their bows trained on me.
Commoners Gil and Ril who had vanished almost as soon as the ambush occurred finally appeared. And it seemed they were on my side. Maybe their actions were orchestrated, and they had waited until they were certain all pieces of this chess match were in play. Maybe they were waiting to see if and how I would survive the ground battle. Or maybe they were an opportunist and waited to now because by engaging at this point in the battle, their actions would be the most impactful.
I didn"t really care at this moment. I would accept their help. But I would remember that they waited until this moment to offer that help.
A barrier of some type formed before the remaining enemies, and it didn"t matter what or how Gil and Ril threw weapons at the ladies; the effects were the same. They deflected everything.
The sneak attack had allowed two of the archers to be killed, but the remaining Archers and the Gorgon were safe behind that construct.
Since physical weapons seemed useless, I wondered about metaphysical weapons. Flicking my wrist in a magician"s sleight-of-hand movement, I stored my sword back into my ring. Concentrating on the ambient magic, I flexed that mental muscle that allowed me to reach out and control the magic energies, spinning and twisting more and more of that energy as I molded my magic into the form and shape, I was most used to when performing spellcraft.
I hadn"t cast Focus Fire yet, so I wasn"t sure exactly what it would do, but I hoped that by combining it with my Air: Force spell, I could create a new spell. I was hoping to create a fireball spell. Granted fireball spells were level one noob spells in any MMORPG I"d ever played. But they all had two things in common. They were destructive, and some had splash damage that gave an area effect damage debuff, and they increased in damage and strength based on the level of the player.
Unfortunately, the remaining three archers weren"t patient enough to wait until I was finished experimenting. Taking aim carefully, altering their choice of target slightly, they fired their arrows. My shield easily stopped the arrows aimed at me, but Cedric wasn"t as lucky. I heard him grunt in pain as one of the arrows lodged in his chest. Dropping to his knee as he fell under the onslaught of the attack, his countenance morphed from wariness to determination.
Slowly, painfully, he stood back up.
Gil and Ril vanished again, almost as fast as the arrows sped towards us. I had no idea how they were doing it. If it was a rogue based skill or a spell they had, but it was effective. One of the arrows that had targeted them embedded itself harmlessly in a tree behind where they had just been standing.
My fire spell had coalesced into an ethereal ma.s.s of blue-white energy. Atoms and molecules mirroring the nuclear reaction of the sun. Fire. when burning, was normally reds, yellows, and oranges. It was only when a fire burnt at extremely high temperatures that the blues and whites appeared.
Deciding to take out the ringleader, and hopefully destroy any morale the remaining fighters had, I "pushed" the fire ma.s.s using Air: Force at the Gorgon.
"Fireball," I chanted, releasing my intent and imagining the air directing my fireball. The results were spectacular.
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The barrier that had been created was completely ignored as my fireball sailed directly through and towards the Gorgon. The energy barrier had been created to stop physical attacks, my fireball was an entirely magical creation.
The sight and form of my fireball wasn"t that impressive, it was the effect once it made contact that was truly frightening. There was a kind of tearing sound as air was displaced when the Spell: Force catapulted the fireball forward. The impact was accompanied by a loud boom, as the sound barrier was broken, and the fireball exploded.
Just that quickly, the Gorgon ceased to exist. One minute she was there. The next every molecule, every atom, everything that made up the Gorgon was incinerated, in a conflagration of fire and fury that left no time for her to react, to defend herself, or to surrender.
I was a descendant of Belenos, the G.o.d of Sun and Healing, and my ability and affinity with fire had an intensity and fierceness that gave testament to that relationship.
Seelie or Unseelie, it made no difference.
We all were creatures of nature.
We embraced the world around us and lived in harmony with those aspects of nature that allowed us to nurture those ties that bound us. And as the children of the Sidhe, the Summerlands had always been ours.
Here.
In this place.
We the children of G.o.ds were at our most powerful. There was no iron to corrupt us. No silver to bind us. And no dichotomy that could sever those ties that limited us.
I wondered if this feeling of power and omnipotence I felt as I crafted and released my new spell isn"t why so many people turn from the light. It would be so easy to embrace this power and these feelings and begin a reign of horror and blood that would paint the crops.
Blood and s.e.x. Both symbols of vitality and growth.
Life and death. Both opposite sides of the same coin.
It would be so easy to surrender and accept the path of blood and death.
My musings were interrupted by three flashes of light that effortlessly pierced the heads of the remaining archers killing them instantly.
Turning my attention to Cedric, I dismissed my fire shield and began to probe his wounds. I ignored the arrow entrenched within his chest for the moment, so I could examine the rest of his wounds and get an idea of how badly he was hurt.
He had a few slashes on his arm, and it appeared two of his fingers were broken, but these were superficial and were not life-threatening. The arrow really was the wound I needed to be concerned with.
"We need to get you back to Kel"s fief and get you seen by a healer," I said to Cedric gently.
[Mac. You have a healing spell. It might be better to use that and see how effective it is. Moving him with an arrow lodged in his chest might not be the smartest idea,] Caraid said, reminding me of my own abilities and spell list.
"Gil and Ril, we"ll discuss your vanishing act and what you were thinking soon. I"m going to a.s.sume for now that you guys had a plan and your actions weren"t just taken to protect your own a.s.ses. For now, Gil, come over here and hold Cedric down. I"m going to remove this arrow and see if I can stabilize him and begin healing him before we return."
"Ril, loot the bodies. Gather everything of value and see if you can find a clue into what Sidhe opened a portal for them."
Withdrawing a dagger from my storage ring, I quickly summoned a flame to sterilize the blade. Gil helped Cedric to lie on the ground before moving to his head and grabbing his shoulders to brace and restrain him. I spent a few seconds probing the area, trying to determine exactly how the arrowhead was lodged.
It seemed as if the arrow had spun as it entered his body, a kind of corkscrew effect, and instead of shattering rib bones, it had actually bored a path between them.
Ripping Cedric"s tunic to give myself more room to maneuver and a better line of sight, I made two slices in his chest, one on each side of where my probing detected the head of the arrow entered.
Using my fingers to palpate, I began to dig into his body following the path of the shaft until I was able to understand the position of the arrowhead.
Cedric bucked widely, screaming horribly at this point, but Gil was able to maintain control and keep his torso from moving. Grasping the arrow shaft with one hand, using my other hand and my index finger as a guide, I began turning and pulling the arrow so that it mimicked the path it had taken when entering. I grimaced in sympathy at each flinch and bellow Cedric made as I purposely tormented him to minimize any further damage to his internal organs or rib cage.
I"d like to say that I was proficient in my surgical skills, and the removal of the arrow was a matter of seconds, but that wasn"t the case. It took me over five minutes of steady, painful manipulation before I was finally able to remove the arrow and begin the next step.
Pressing down firmly, with fresh blood welling between my fingers, I began casting my heal spell. I had no idea how this was going to work. I was hoping it would be like those games I played, and the healing would just happen. But my powers were tuned with Belenos and the sun. My nature was aligned with that of fire so I should have realized that fire would be involved.