Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

While his dragon’s attention was on the attack, a hellcat attacked Corva out of nowhere. It happened so fast that the elf was ripped from the dragon’s back before he even felt the claws digging into his shoulders. The blue dragon wasn’t physically harmed, but feeling the proximity of the demons behind it, and with Corva’s weight suddenly gone from its back, it whipped around and left the warriors to their fate. The two uninjured men joined to attack the bloody beast. The sparkling blue dragon leapt back into the air in pursuit of the hellcat that was still holding its rider in its claws. The hellcat led the blue wyrm up into the toxic cloud the Warlord had created, and then dropped the elf. Torn between chasing the demon and trying to catch Corva, the dragon followed its instinct. It could only assume that Corva was already crushed to death, so it went after the beast. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had chosen to dive after its rider, though; it had been led into a trap.

From above, below, and even behind the sparkling blue, a dozen or more hellcats, and a massive red-furred apish thing converged on it all at once. The red-furred beast had a black, leathery chest and its wings were far too small to actually carry it. It flew by way of magic. It was a greater demon and it tore into the blue with its power while its minions did the same with tooth and claw. It was all the hellborn creatures could do to get away from the wyrm when it started falling from the sky.

“Put me down!” Queen Rosa screamed at the Blacksword Knight who’d just brought the Queen Mother in from the gate. He was fearfully trying to drag the queen of the realm from the balcony. “Tell him, Willa!” She thrashed and swung as she yelled. The last words she spoke very loudly and very clearly. “Mikahl is out there!”

Queen Willa gave the man a nod and he let the High Queen loose. Telgra stepped up to her quickly in order to keep her from scratching the poor man’s face.

“Come,” the Queen Mother of the elves said. “Both of you. Stay close to me and the Heart of Arbor will shield us from sight.” With that, she shouldered away the stupefied guard.

Rosa saw Mikahl lying burned and broken in the snow, saw Phen touching him with Ironspike. The fact that the sword was responding to Phen didn’t register on her. She was overcome with grief. From her vantage, Mikahl looked injured beyond hope. She barely heard the gasps of the other two women.

Queen Willa was gasping because of Phen. She remembered vividly the large Westland lord named Ellrich who’d brought the boy to Xwarda so long ago. In a single sitting he had eaten the better part of a roasted pig.

Willa hadn’t been a queen then, only a princess. The expression of anguish on the boy’s face as he pulled the sword away from the High King said more than words ever could. She stepped up behind Rosa and gave her gentle support.

Telgra gasped because the sight and smell, the very presence of the thing rising up out of the water before Hyden Hawk, was appalling to her senses. The Arbor’s Heart hammered through her chest in disgust and she had to fight to breathe as some dark purple taint jetted up into the sky from the Warlord’s outstretched hands. She didn’t even notice the body Phen had been worrying over, but she saw the sword’s bluish glimmer brighten to red, then orange, then pure white. She could almost feel the heat from the magic warming her skin. In her heart she cheered Phen as he strode forward purposefully and pointed the sword at Hyden. Her intense focus was broken suddenly as Corva’s body came slamming down into the balcony with a sickening crunch. All of the women screamed in terror. The way the body lay across the rail, like a grain sack, limp and still, left no room to hope that he had survived.

Queen Willa, shocked to the core by the impact, pulled Rosa back into the chamber. Rosa was far too traumatized to resist.

Telgra knew immediately that it was Corva, and it crushed her emotions into a compressed knot so tightly that they exploded. She lost the spell of concealing she’d cast over them. She fell to her knees and wailed out tears of sorrow. That was when Phen sent Ironspike’s magical blast into Hyden Hawk. It was the last thing she saw, for the elven guards rushed out onto the balcony and pulled the Queen Mother, and then Corva’s broken body, out of the open.

The Warlord was in ecstasy, especially now that the High King was dead. That brief moment of terror when the stubborn man and his glowing pegasus came streaking back in had been enough to jolt the Warlord into action. The fact that the High King had survived his frozen fall was as infuriating as it was eye-opening. He thought he had already disposed of the man. This time, he was certain.

It was nearly as frustrating as fighting the wizard. He wasn’t worried, though. In the bottom of the pond he had found the Wardstone and claimed its power as his own. This wizard might be able to survive dragon’s fire, but he wouldn’t survive what was coming.

The long-consumed demon Shokin’s voice came calling through the glee. A distant, whispery sound, but clear enough to be heard above the rest. “Pavreal’s blood still powers the blade,” it said urgently. “Beware.”

The Warlord disregarded the warning words while continuing to spray his toxic miasma into the sky with one hand. He conjured forth a blast of magical force powerful enough to level a mountain with the other hand. He then sent his churning destructive construct directly at Hyden.

It was too late when the Warlord realized his mistake. Had he heeded Shokin’s warning and conjured forth a shielding, he might have had a chance. As it was, the power of Ironspike, magnified by the crystalized dragon’s tear, then multiplied further by the Tokamac Verge, hit the Hell Master just before he could release at Hyden. It didn’t hurt the Warlord, and it didn’t immediately stop him from using the Wardstone’s power, but it held him fast and confused him long enough for Hyden to do what he had to do.

Hyden had to fight to maintain control of himself as the monumental force of multiple magics exploded through his body. He was filled with sensations so pleasureful, and so gut-wrenching, that it would have been easy to lose himself in them. There was pain, too. His body jerked and trembled with it. With each passing minute he aged a month or more. He managed to tune all of it out, though, and focus on what had to be done.

With the power of the ring he’d taken from Gerard, he conjured forth a clear, glassine orb of magical energy. It was slightly larger than the Warlord, big enough to contain him. The power of Ironspike, the dragon’s tear, and the Tokamac Verge suddenly let loose on the Hell Master. Inside the translucent globe, the Warlord struggled mightily to break free of the field that contained him. He began pounding and yelling and trying with all his might to summon forth the Wardstone’s magic, but the field Hyden had created kept him from reaching it. Now, the glassine substance was thickening inward, stilling the Warlord’s aggression as it encased him.

Hyden let the power of the crystal Verge snug the magical boundary down around the Warlord so tightly that he couldn’t even move a finger. The Warlord was trapped in place, as if he were frozen; only this ice wasn’t tangible, it was magical, and as bindingly solid to the Hell Master as the dividing boundaries between the heavens and the hells.

At that moment, Hyden could have killed the Warlord for good, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was certain that the binding would hold, and besides that, he just couldn’t bring himself to kill the thing that used to be his little brother. He wasn’t sure if those were the real reasons, or if he was just afraid that he would die if the Warlord did. At the moment he was too exhausted to worry much about it anymore. The fact that he felt twice his age was what confounded him as he collapsed into the water before the hovering prison he’d created.