Spellscribed: Resurgence (27 page)

Endrance took the opening to point with his fingers and slam power into his lightning spell. Rings of white light sprang up from around his fingers, guiding the tightly contained electrical discharge into a perfectly straight beam of scintillating light. The beam shot between the intervening distance fast enough to create a thunderclap that blasted away the loose dirt and black sand between the two mages.

Valeria's wards exploded into visible light, their runes and glyphs visible as the beam of lightning played across their surface. Thin beams refracted out from the impact point at odd angles, cutting through the stone and earth around them with terrifying intensity. Bridget yelped and threw herself to the side as one such ray glanced across her wooden arm and seared off a line of moss that instantly bloomed and then burned away under the magical assault.

With his other hand, he prepared to handle whatever attacks the litch was going to throw at them.

Valeria remained calm under the torrent of lightning, flexing her hand as the bones instantly knit and her fingers crackled back into shape.

"Only elemental magic?" she asked in an even tone. "I hope that this is your warm up."

She incanted a spell and snapped her fingers. Endrance's concentration faltered as he found himself flung into the air violently by some invisible force. He canceled his lightning spell, but not before drawing a line of burning light across part of the coast and several miles of the ocean. His companions were similarly tossed.

Endrance had barely found his orientation before that vertical motion flipped from violently up into violently down. The ground shuddered as they slammed into the earth with what would have been bone-breaking impact. He felt his wards hold, but he wasn't sure if the quickly made items he had given his friends would hold out against something like that.

Endrance groaned, and started to pick himself up when Valeria cast the same spell again. They were tossed again into the sky, then slammed down to the earth. And again a third time. The litch had found a vulnerability in his defenses and was hammering it home.

And then a boulder the size of a large wagon landed on top of her, skidding in the earth and tossing dirt and debris into the air.

I am glad to see that I only hit her. Gullin said, wheeling away to find another large rock. This method of attack seems to be effective.

Endrance picked himself up and looked up to the sky and nodded. Joven and Selene were the next to rise, while Tanya and Bridget were unsteadily getting back on their feet.

Keep at it. He advised. I don't think it will be enough to stop her.

The boulder blackened, crumbling into black sands that ran down around the litch, who looked to have only been buried up to her calves by the heavy weight of the rock that disintegrated around her. She flicked her wrist and released a spell as she effortlessly pulled her legs out of the ground. A cloud of dozens of phantom swords appeared in the air around her, translucent and purple, far more than Endrance thought possible.

Perhaps I was hasty in my assessment. Gullin observed dryly as he banked and changed course.

Endrance slung a similar spell, generating a little over half as many blades. Valeria reacted with a gesture, directing an equal number of her swords towards the ones he made, causing them to clash in mid-air. The remaining blades shot through the air, tracking after Gullin.

Gullin! Watch out! Endrance called mentally, diving through the swarm of clashing blades to close in on Valeria. Joven popped his neck before taking off at a sprint, a look of mild irritation crossing his face. Bridget pulled a vial from her belt pouch and poured it across her wooden arm before picking up her short cleaver and advancing.

Tanya shook her head, taking a look around. While everyone else was keeping Valeria busy, she needed to find a way to get a good shot in without risking her companions. Fear for her friends and loved companions trilled in the back of her mind, but she wasn't going to let it paralyze her. She set off at a trot, moving farther away from the fight. Behind her, lightning crashed, swords tumbled through the air, and Gullin screeched as he bombarded the battlefield with explosive beads of fire.

While she moved farther away, her mind raced to find a way to bypass the wards that Valeria had been using. She knew they projected a layer of magic around them, like a second skin, but they could be weaker in areas that weren't properly designed. This woman was once an Archmagus, though, so finding a weak point was unlikely, and she had only so many arrows.

Tanya found cover and dove behind it, taking a moment to catch her breath. From behind her she could hear Selene's scream and a sound of tearing flesh. She glanced around the side of the rock and saw it wasn't what she had thought. Selene's claws had managed to puncture the wards carving a row of gouges into Valeria's side. The irate litch blasted the half-demon away with a pulse of force, but was just as quickly turning to defeat a new spell Endrance tried against her.

The litch was preternaturally fast and nimble, moving with no hesitation to avoid attacks by Joven and Bridget despite their tandem assault. Unconcerned with feeling discomfort or pain, Valeria was able to move in ways that would have been impossible for a normal human or even elf to fight. Whatever impression of creaky weakness her withered body provided was lost when watching the agility and speed the dead woman fought with.

Tanya realized she was just watching the fight roll out, and mentally slapped herself. She drew an arrow, trying to draw a bead on the litch but having trouble following her movements. She stared for several seconds, catching onto a pattern of swings that Joven was making with his fists and Bridget with her cleavers. She didn't know if the litch would be where she aimed, but if Valeria would dodge Bridget's horizontal slice the same way another time, she-

Tanya pulled back as hard as she could on the bowstring, concentrating as hard as she could upon her target. The runes carved in her bow erupted in golden flames, licking at the edges of the carvings, but she didn't notice. All she could see was Valeria, and where she was about to be. She exhaled, releasing the shot. The bowstring propelled the arrow on its path, the cord slicing through the hardened leather wrist brace of her left hand and drawing blood. She flinched with the pain but didn't stop from drawing another arrow, taking aim, and firing again.

The first arrow powered through the air, and just as Valeria took a step back from Bridget's swing, the arrow struck the litch's wards just over her right temple. Bridget could see the arrow, sheathed in magic force, seem to hover against the wards for a split second before exploding violently, knocking Valeria back into the path of her attack. Her heavy cleaver impacted Valeria's wards and crunched through them, powered by enhanced strength. Tanya's arrow had taken enough power out of the wards that her hit broke through before they could regain strength.

Bridget's blade severed Valeria's left arm, sending it flying. Separated from her body, the arm dried and crumbled into dust before it could land on the earth. Valeria screeched for the first time, not in pain but in rage. The second arrow caught the dead mage in the leg, piercing through her calf but doing no apparent damage. Valeria lunged at Bridget, raising her remaining hand with her fingers straight like a knife.

Before she could thrust her hand into Bridget's chest Joven connected with a fist, knocking her off course. The litch's hand cleanly cut through Bridget's armor and into the side of her chest with a sickening crunch. The barbarian woman staggered back, dropping her short cleaver and putting her hand over the wound. Pieces of bone jutted from the wound, and she took a shuddering breath before falling over backwards. Endrance had seen the hit and moved, catching her before she collapsed. He quickly chanted the words of power and cast a healing spell, hoping he had come in time. He wasn't Meryl; he did not have the skill to keep someone fatally wounded from death.

Bridget's ribs folded back into her chest, the bleeding slowing and skin knitting before his eyes. He had arrived in time. Selene flew in, slashing at Valeria again with each hand, finally returned from wherever Valeria had blasted her. Endrance noticed that she was fully transformed, something that was worrisome.

Endrance set her on her butt, standing and striding forward. He conjured another cloud of phantom blades, forcing Valeria to disengage from Joven to counter his spell. She should have been hampered by the missing arm, but the dead woman seemed to be unphased or even slowed by the loss. Any lesser mage would have been disrupted from casting any more spells, but Valeria was a tougher and more competent mage than Endrance had ever seen. She switched instantly to casting with one hand, seemingly only mildly inconvenienced by the necessity.

Gullin had returned to bombard again, when Valeria gestured in the air. The fiery beads Gullin fired down exploded right outside the bird's beak, sending the fjallar reeling. Another arrow clipped the side of Valeria's head, not quite piercing her wards but evoking a hiss from her. Joven, still looking only mildly irritated, circled around her, still using his bare hands. She countered his swords with more of her own, and sent the remainder flying at him. He tossed up a shield of stones, letting them take the hit as he drew up a large quantity of power. This spell was strong, but he wasn't sure if it would work on an undead like her.

He held the power in reserve, preparing the spell in the spell matrix next to his heart. To cover, he threw out a cone of flames, knowing Joven and Selene would survive. The fire flooded around the three, and while they were temporarily blinded by smoke, Endrance started on his second spell.

A crack of thunder nearly interrupted him as Valeria caught Joven square in the chest with a lightning bolt. Not quite as powerful as Endrance's since he had specialized in improving it, the blast was nonetheless capable of sending Joven rolling out of the smoke and across the ground. Had Endrance seen the lightning pierce? The big man laid still, unmoving.

He couldn't wait to find out. His spell was ready.

"Selene!" He shouted, knowing full well what it would do. "Get away!"

The half-demon launched herself straight into the air her black wings smoking from the fire. The smoke cleared just enough for Valeria to see Endrance fan both hands out, pointing his palms at her.

Of all the spells that Endrance knew, he knew that Valeria was one of the few who was aware the Soul Lance spell. He hadn't the time to improve everything he had learned while imprisoned in the Bastille, but he had not neglected improving upon this particular one.

The Soul Lance left him without kicking his hands back, a brilliant fully formed lance of iridescent colors. The lance rippled silently through the air without disturbing it, seeming to almost be nothing but an illusion.

Valeria's eyeless sockets widened, and she tried to leap to the side. Another arrow struck her in her other leg, this one pinning her leg to the floor for the instant required to let the lance hit.

The soul lance caught her in the abdomen. Her wards couldn't do more than soften the blow by a small fraction, the lance tearing her off the ground and carrying her back. She collided with a stone block near the shoreline, temporarily impaled upon the lance. She shrieked as she was carried away, the grass beneath her dying as she passed.

The lance continued on through her and the rock, coming out the far side and continuing on over the ocean. Endrance had put more power into the spell than it was supposed to have, but he couldn't judge when the lance would fade. It didn't matter at the moment; more important things were on his mind.

Valeria collapsed to the ground, sitting up against the stone, her green balefire eyes flickering as he approached. Endrance could see her legs start to disintegrate. She was dying for the final time.

"It's finished." Endrance whispered.

Valeria looked down as her calves crumbled to dust, spreading up her knees. She nodded. "Yes." she whispered.

Endrance wasn't sure how she managed to move, but the next thing he knew he felt a stunning pain in his face as the wards around his head shattered. Valeria was on him, her hand against the left side of his face. His left eye went dark in a blinding flash of pain and he screamed as the litch poured all of her necromantic power into him.

"Come with me, my son." she whispered.

Selene shrieked, dropping from the sky with a swipe of her talons. Valeria's remaining hand was destroyed, letting Endrance stumble back as the litch collapsed to the ground beneath their feet. Endrance clasped his hands to his eyes, trying to regain his equilibrium.

"Pity." Valeria whispered, her torso starting to crumble. "Malchoir…" her voice dwindled.

She crumbled to dust, her skull falling apart to reveal a burning green flame that hovered for several seconds before drifting towards Endrance and almost gently merging with his chest. He stumbled back, but was not able to evade the energy.

Endrance felt no rush of memories like he did when a living being died. Instead, his mind merely updated with the knowledge of spells and natural powers. Compared to the pain in his head, the information gained was hardly even noticed.

"Endrance!" Selene cried, shifting into her human form. Tanya approached at a trot as Selene looked him over. Endrance staggered away, instinct not letting him take his hand away from his wounded face.

"What's wrong?" Tanya asked.

Selene shook his head. "I… I don't know." she said. "He won't let me see it."