Spellscribed: Resurgence (25 page)

Endrance couldn't even scream in pain. The knife had punctured one of his lungs, and he was only held upright by whatever magic was worked into the knife. He needed help.

Selene!
He ordered
. Perro's stabbed me, I need you!

Endrance expected her to respond mentally, but all he got back from her was a momentary flash of surprise turning into fury. And then there was the sound of something scratching along stone on the wall behind them. Perro looked over his shoulder to see the stone wall separating the guest bedroom explode into the room by the force of Selene's charge, several blocks having been sliced into weak chunks by her talons.

The mage left the dagger in Endrance's back, turning and slinging a spell Endrance couldn't hear over Selene's shriek. He was unable to watch the battle, but even if he could, the dagger in his back was a bigger priority.

He willed his limbs to move, and he was only able to wrest some movement from his arms. Suddenly, he felt a hand grab his shoulder, and another the handle of the knife.

"Hold on." Bridget said. "I need to borrow this."

She pulled the dagger from his back with one smooth yank, and Endrance collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping for air that wouldn't come. Bridget turned from him and charged back into the main hall, where the mage Andrews had managed to keep Selene at bay.

Endrance started whispering the words of power for his healing spell, not confident in his mastery of life magic to sling a quick one. His reserves of power had depreciated, but not nearly as much as the mage had thought. He was likely to die of blood loss before the dagger had enough time to steal all his power.

"Enough!" Endrance heard Perro cry. "Comrades! To me!"

There was a sharp cracking sound, and the room behind him suddenly sounded with several more voices, each chanting words of power. Endrance finished his healing spell and struggled to rise, as his lung sealed up and filled with air. He turned, finding not only Perro Andrews, but six more mages had appeared in the room. They were cloaked and hooded, with wraps around the bottom half of their faces.

"Take them down." Mage Andrews commanded. "I want to finish Endrance myself."

Selene was blasted by several spells, knocking her down and unmoving before Endrance could even react. Bridget had some kind of colorful moss growing on her wooden arm, and was able to strike down one of the mages with her sword before she was blasted by a gout of flames that slammed her against the far wall and dropped her to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Tanya had somehow gotten ahold of the dagger that had struck Endrance and threw it at Perro. The man wrenched his head out of the way, and the dagger's point glanced off the curve of his cheekbone, slashing his face open as it bounced past him.

Another mage threw out a hand, electricity arcing between him and Tanya, and she crumpled to the floor, twitching. Endrance had barely finished healing by the time they had incapacitated, or possibly killed, his Draugnoa. Endrance felt a spark of a different kind of fire deep within his heart. He had already lost Joven. He couldn't allow them to take away the only other people he loved. He drew on the power of his bracers, refilling his depleted aura as best he could. His wards powered up to full strength, making his body glow with golden seams of light that could even be seen through his clothing.

"We must kill him." Mage Andrews ordered. He and the five remaining mages turned and raised their hands, each slinging a spell at him. A tidal wave of elemental energies blasted down the tight stone hallway, crumbling and searing the wooden floor between them.

Endrance thrust his hand forward through the torrent of elemental energy and added his own. He had never used the lightning spell on his hand at full power since he had improved upon it during his imprisonment. Now, he powered it with everything it was able to handle.

The world exploded into brilliance around him, the sonic blast of his lightning piercing the air, nearly shattering his ears, if not for the wards he had against sonic attacks. The lightning didn't move forward so much as it seemed to just suddenly exist in a straight line, like a beam of light. Everything was washed white with the brilliance of the spell within such a closed space.

Since Endrance was not able to aim and he had a limited view of the room from the doorway, the shot missed but not without having some benefit. The bolt passed within six inches of one of the cloaked mages, and his clothing erupted into flames, eliciting his abandonment of the fight, at least until he could put out the fire. The rest staggered back, temporarily dazzled by the brilliance and sound.

He stepped into the empty air where storms of magic had been. "Killing me will be harder than you think, traitor." Endrance growled. Power flooded into his boosting spells, and his perception of time slowed to a crawl.

Endrance raised his hands and moved forward, taking the offensive. He knew that a protracted battle with so many mages would only end badly for him, even if he was stronger than them individually.

His first blast of fire scattered them, but they each had wards prepared for flame spells. Endrance knew that his lightning attack would be able to puncture their defenses, but he couldn't use it repeatedly or they would anticipate it.

He was already hurting from his prior injury, but some part of him found the battle exciting. He was in a fight over his head again. His comrades were down, if not dead, and he had nowhere to go if he was forced to run. His back was to the wall, but there was a part of him that reveled in the fact that this was the perfect excuse to let loose and really see what he could do in a fight.

The battle was brief, but furious. Only the fact that the room was made of stone kept it from being blown to pieces by the tightly contained onslaught. Endrance managed to bring down another mage with a force blast that smashed him into the ceiling, crushing his victim's neck and skull. He was able to cause severe burns to the one already set ablaze with his fire amplification spell, sending the man shrieking out of the longhouse as his throat and lungs burned. His frost ray was able to temporarily lock Mage Andrews down by freezing his right arm to the wall, but the mage managed to break free with only minimal damage. However, while his wards were more than potent enough to shrug off every hit they threw at him, each spell defended against was at a cost. His reserves of power were dropping steadily.

He fought the remaining four to a standstill, but both sides were getting tired. Endrance felt confident he could win if given enough time. He had only started using some of the battle tactics that he had learned from Kaelob's impression, since he had not the time to discern which were truly helpful, and which were the results of the man's insanity.

Then the three intact cloaked mages pulled wooden tabs from their robes. Endrance saw the flat, finger length tablet of wood just before the first of the three took it between both hands and snapped it in half. There were anti-magic spells trapped within the tablets, their magic released when the wood was broken. From the mage's hands a sphere of magic dissonance exploded outwards, peeling away Endrance's defenses and shattering his next spell mid-formation. Alongside the loss of his magic and protections, the anti-magic scrambled the power in his meridians. His Mercanian blood made him vulnerable to the distortion in ways that humans were too insensitive to feel.

Endrance fell to his knees, his vision vibrating rapidly and his ears ringing. Every square inch of his skin buzzed with nonsensical sensory feedback, like it had transformed into a swarm of riotous wasps. He gagged as nausea flooded through him, vomiting completely against his will. Endrance was not able to defend himself. His spells were temporarily stripped away. And worse yet, he could hardly see or hear what was going on. Andrews was talking to him, but it sounded like so much noise lost in a sea of sound. He could see only the hems of their robes and the tips of their shoes as they approached. Endrance started lifting his head.

The second of the three mages snapped his anti-magic tab. He was closer to Endrance, and already weakened by the first one, it was all he could do to remain conscious. More buzzing, more painful disorienting noise. Endrance lost the feeling in his legs and arms, dropping to the floor into his own mess. A foot, presumably Mage Andrews', kicked him onto his back. Endrance looked up at the man about to kill him, and saw multiples of each. Andrews reached out and took the last of the anti-magic tabs from the third mage, and sneered as he leaned closer to Endrance.

Endrance could tell he was about to say something, and then the man turned and looked away from him, towards the front door. He shouted something, the noise still outside of Endrance's stunned senses. One of the cloaked mages turned towards the direction Mage Andrews was speaking and walked out of sight.

He then he came back into sight, flung across his vision, and was gone again in the opposite direction like he had been shot out of a ballista. Endrance was already struggling to mentally orient himself, but he had not come anywhere close enough to being able to figure out what was happening. The other two cloaked mages drew prepared magic as they backed away from Endrance, and Perro slung some kind of spray of icicles past Endrance's vision.

There was a flicker, and something metallic and as long as his forearm flickered through the air, striking one of the cloaked mages in the neck. The struck mage went down hard, blood gushing out from around the hilt of a long knife that had embedded itself in his throat. The remaining men moved away from Endrance so they had room to fight. Endrance was not able to see what happened next.

His hearing had started to clear in time to hear the unmistakable sound of bone snapping, and a thin cry of pain that followed. That cry was cut short by the sound of steel cutting flesh, and a man dropped to the floor nearby. Endrance could feel something hot and wet contact his calf and spread slowly across the whole side of his leg. There was a crack-boom of what Endrance considered a pale imitation of his lightning spell, followed by another sound of steel meeting flesh. No body struck the floor that time.

Endrance picked out Perro's voice as he chanted another spell, and Endrance struggled to lift his head. There was a flash of fire that obscured whoever Perro's attacker was, giving Endrance only the silhouette of a man. The man charged into the wave of flames, burying a shoulder into Perro's chest so hard Endrance heard the crack of bone snapping from across the room. The man carried Perro forward on his shoulder until he impacted the far wall. There was a sickening crunch as the mage's body was crushed against the wall hard enough to cause blood to erupt from his mouth.

Endrance shook his head, trying to clear it as the man who came to his aid turned to face him. Endrance lost a few seconds, staring without comprehension.

The man was six foot, six inches tall. His powerful frame supported an even measure of hulking muscle, bare-chested, wearing leather pants and heavy winter boots. He had a strong jaw and a crooked nose, with strangely intelligent blue eyes. He had long hair and a beard of several inches, both blonde. Endrance saw several scars across his body, including a circular disk across his abdomen that looked to be a full hand's span across. There was no evidence of fire damage to his body or hair from the moment before.

The man checked on the unmoving forms of the three downed women before he walked over to Endrance and knelt down, looking him in the eye.

"J… Joven?" Endrance managed to ask in a whisper.

The man did not reply. He simply grinned.

Endrance would have asked another question, but the auras of the mages his rescuer had killed released, swirling around him and funneling into his body in streamers of golden light. Endrance couldn't maintain any semblance of composure and collapsed again. This time, he slipped into unconsciousness as seven auras streamed through his mind at the same time.

* * * *

Endrance awoke some time later to find himself face down on a bed. It was warm and he felt pressure on his body from at least two people laying on either side of him. His senses had finally start to clear after being scrambled so badly, and having absorbed seven more auras after the battle. He did a quick mental check, and was relieved that none of his Draugnoa had been among them.

Lifting his head, he found that Selene, Bridget, and Tanya had been laid upon the same bed; a large one that looked to be in the master bedroom of the longhouse. They were still in their clothes, and it  looked like their injuries had only been given cursory treatment.

A voice spoke out, coarse and cracking, as if the speaker had not used it in a long time. "I took care of the burns, but Selene's got some kind of frostbite and Bridget's got at least two broken ribs."

Endrance looked to the source of the voice. Joven sat on a chair facing the bed, his hands clasped under his bearded chin and his elbows on his knees. The man looked to be in prime physical shape, and though his hair had gone untouched for a long time, it had seen a comb recently.

Endrance pushed himself to a sitting position, feeling the ache in his back where he had been stabbed. It was dull, and if his mental calculations were correct, it would be gone by the end of the day.  Endrance looked up at his friend thought dead, the pain in his heart coming to the foreground of his thoughts

"Joven." Endrance said, blinking back tears in his eyes.

"Yeah?" Joven replied.

"They told me you died." Endrance whispered.