The sorcerer saw him, and the man’s eyes went wide with alarm, but it was too late. Will drove his sword into the man’s chest and leapt away. Unfortunately, his sword didn’t come with him. It had caught on something, and try as he might he couldn’t pull it free. He was forced to leave it as the soldiers began to react.
The soldiers weren’t behaving quite as he had hoped, either. None of them had shouted or called out. The fact that their sorcerer had been stabbed was still registering with those closest.
And the sorcerer was anything but dead. The man was gasping with pain, but the thrust hadn’t been instantly fatal, as Will had hoped. The fire elemental swelled, and Will realized he was about to be roasted. “Selene!” he screamed. “Selene!”
The mist began moving, rushing inward as though a strong wind was blowing, and then everything was flames as the elemental’s attack washed over him. Will shut his eyes, unsure if he would die or not, but after a second he realized he was still alive. He opened them again and saw that the mist was gone. Three soldiers with spears were charging toward him. Shit. He started running, heading away from his friends in case the sorcerer unleashed another blast of fire.
And then Selene was there, clad in stone and swinging blue blades of destruction. Men started screaming, and a severed arm flew past Will’s head. He watched in fascination as she waded into the soldiers. Selene’s swords didn’t seem to cut metal, and he saw one man’s sword almost pass through one of her blue blades before it was torn from the soldier’s grasp and sent flying through the air. Their mail armor was similarly unaffected, but it didn’t save them. Her weapons tore through padded gambesons and shredded the flesh beneath the armor. Men died in dozens, and Selene’s swords turned red as blood mixed with the water.
The fire elemental rose up above them, a raging inferno, and Selene’s swords melded to become an opaque disc that she used to shield herself as another searing blast of flame came down on her. The result was a blast of steam that exploded outward from her, scalding the last two soldiers that stood within her reach. But the shield was gone.
Will ran toward her as the sorcerer snarled and prepared a fresh attack. The man was on his knees twenty feet in front of her, sword still stuck in his chest. Ten soldiers were left beside him, but the sorcerer cautioned them, “Stay back. This will finish it.”
Will reached Selene just as the next blast of flame came down on their heads. This time he felt the searing heat as his empty sphere reached capacity and he was forced to expand it even further as he tried to absorb everything the elemental threw at them. When the attack ended, he could feel his hair standing on end, and a globe of burning turyn surrounded him. He had reached his limit.
The power he was holding threatened to consume him, and there was only one thing left he could do. Thrusting his arms out, Will released it, and a wave of incendiary power washed over the sorcerer, his men, and the corner of the warehouse behind them.
The enemies’ screams were brief as their lungs filled with flame, and moments later their bodies were just smoldering, black lumps of flesh as they fell to the ground.
Will looked at Selene first. “Are you all right?” She nodded, and then he glanced at Annabelle, who was huddled against the side of the tent on the opposite side of the square from the warehouse. Tracy was nowhere to be seen.
He spotted her a moment later, or rather, he saw what was left of her. At some point she had run forward and to the side. She had been caught in the edge of his blast. Will screamed, “No!”
The left side of Tracy’s body was blackened, and half her face was gone, yet there was still some life in her. Her head turned as she tried to see the world with eyes that had burned away. Her arms and legs thrashed against the hard earth. “No, no, no,” Will moaned, running to her side.
Tracy’s mouth worked, opening and closing as she tried to speak with lungs that could no longer draw breath. “I’m so sorry,” Will cried. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen.”
Mercifully, Tracy Tanner died a moment later, and her body grew still. Will felt Annabelle’s arms around his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly.
For some reason his first thought was of Sven, with a spear through his face. “Yeah it is,” he said slowly. “The moment you pick up a weapon, it’s your fault. It always is.” He stood and shrugged off the embrace before going back to Selene.
“Can you make a new mist?”
Selene had dismissed her stone armor, and Will could see that the elementals hovering above her shoulders looked smaller. “No,” she answered. “It will take a while before Syllannus recovers enough power. I’ve been using him steadily since we entered the camp, and that fire blast wiped out everything he had left.”
He studied the elementals for a few seconds, seeing something he had never noticed before. The random wisps of turyn that floated through the air near them were being drawn in, sucked into the elementals. They’re absorbing ambient turyn—like me, he noted. It seemed important, but he wasn’t sure why. He filed the fact in the back of his mind for future consideration.
The warehouse in front of them was blazing merrily, but more needed to be done. Shouts were coming from every direction. Will found the sorcerer’s corpse and quickly abandoned the idea of recovering his sword. The hilt was still too hot to touch, and the leather grip had burned completely away. Bending down, he held his palm above the sorcerer’s chest and pulled, extracting the heart-stone enchantment.
As soon as he had it, he began plucking it apart.
“Don’t!” exclaimed Selene. “William! You could use that to protect us! There are more soldiers coming. I can’t do this alone.”
He shook his head and finished, the enchantment dissolving in his hands. The fire elemental expanded, becoming visible and towering over them. Please help us, thought Will. The warehouses need to be destroyed.
He felt something, an emotion like gratitude, but he couldn’t be certain. The elemental bowed and turned away, moving toward the other massive, timbered buildings. “You’ve killed us all,” said Selene bitterly. “Was it worth it?”
Will began whispering to himself, “Tailtiu, Tailtiu, Tailtiu. Thrice called, come to me.” He looked at Selene. “We just have to survive a little longer. Can your earth elemental keep the soldiers from reaching us?”
Selene’s eyes were searching his face. “Maybe.” A moment later, her earth elemental pulsed and walls of earth grew from the ground around them at a distance of twenty feet, creating walls fifteen feet high. “You’re mad, you know that?”
“I prefer to think of it as purposeful stupidity,” said Will.
“What happens now?” asked Annabelle. They could hear soldiers gathering just outside the walls, shouting back and forth to one another.
“In a few minutes one of their sorcerers will get here,” said Selene calmly. “Whatever elemental he has will take my walls apart. After that we’ll most likely die.”
Will looked up at the sky. It was filled with smoke. “Will they be able to stop the fires?”
Selene shrugged. “I don’t think so. Maybe if they have an elemental like my Syllannus, but water elementals are rare, and greater ones even more so. Fire or wind elementals will just make the blaze worse, and while an earth elemental might help put it out, the destruction would be just as bad.”