Umbra scrambled higher up the tree and watched the lizards carefully, they differed from the ones Umbra had been hunting, they were red, taller, and had long fangs that curved down from their mouth.

The reds stepped from side to side with nervous energy as more filtered through the swamp, merging with the immense group hidden in the swamp water and foliage. The red lizards were well hidden even to Umbra’s sight and would be virtually invisible to the lizards on the walls.

The reds didn’t wait long before they started stealthily moving towards the fort with predatory grace, their muscles bunching under their scales, Umbra admired them, they possessed a lethality that the lizards Umbra had preyed upon lacked.

The reds paused at the edge of the trees eyeing the muddy open expanse before the walls, hesitating in much the same way as Umbra had.

They didn’t wait long as a truly monstrous red lizard stepped out on to the expanse, lifted his spear and gave a hissing war cry. The reds ran from cover into the expanse, completely silent, Umbra gawked a bit, there were so many and they came like a silent red wave. The monstrous lizard did not follow them.

The defenders were already firing down on the red lizards and cries of “Bleeding Heart,” and “raid,” rang from the fort, and more defending lizards ran to the walls. The arrows were becoming more numerous and Umbra watched as bodies started falling to be trampled into the soft mud of the swamp, death saturated the air calling for Umbra’s involvement. She held off though, this was a fight she didn’t want to be involved in.

The reds reached the walls and sunk their long claws into the wood, pulling their muscular bodies up the walls, they were fearless as the defenders rained arrows down upon them. Dozens of the reds fell to the ground dead, but it didn’t seem to make a difference as they started getting to the top of the walls, and they wreaked havoc, no single defender was a match for one of the reds. The frequency of the arrows started to slow as more reds made it to the top of the walls. Umbra could barely control herself she was practically itching to be there in the middle of it all, but at the same time, she was scared.

The defending lizards were being decimated, Umbra couldn’t see how the weaker lizards could win this one. It had taken about ten minutes and already their defences were crumbling.

Then suddenly the fort doors swung inwards, the press of reds against the doors stumbling after them to get impaled on the spears of an advancing force led by the large defending chieftain.

The chieftain gave a cry that was echoed by his troops and he rushed forward and the earth shook under his steps, and reds were crushed as he ran through them his spear whirling, he was a force of nature and his fighters followed after him killing the stunned reds.

Umbra had never seen a mage in battle, it was terrifying the earth itself seemed to protect him, spears glanced off his scales and the reds around him seemed to be sucked into the mud, while his allies moved through it like it was a paved street.

Even with the chieftain cutting a swath through the reds, it didn’t seem to be enough, the fighting on the walls was starting to come to a red victory and there were still scores of reds at the front of the castle pressing through the wide-open doors. The death was starting to go to Umbra’s head and she could feel her control slipping, she opened her channels an inch, tasting the magic and it overwhelmed her, she almost blacked out barely holding on to consciousness. There was so much magic and Umbra couldn’t help but push her channels open even more.

Umbra gasped as the magic rushed into her, there had to be 100 dead bodies lying in the field maybe more and all that magic was flowing into her. She lost all semblance of control.

Umbra shadow-jumped into the middle of the melee and cut through the lizards with Carn. Magic overflowed out of her poisoning the air. Everyone close to Umbra keeled over in her presence and she struck at them indiscriminately, Carn singing in her hand. She had never felt more alive, this was where she was supposed to be.

Everyone moved in slow motion and Umbra easily dodged their feeble stabs, dealing death with every movement of her arm. She jumped from one end of the fight to the next never in the same place for more than a few seconds, leaving bodies behind.

As the fight wore on Umbra felt only stronger and crazier, energised from the deaths around her. She continued to channel and stay lucid, something that would’ve been impossible for her not too long ago.

Umbra’s killing spree didn’t go unnoticed though, she could feel the mud gripping at her whenever she stood on it. She snarled in frustration, it hindered her movement and her ability to strike at the weakened lizards. Umbra did her best to ignore it continuing to jump from place to place dealing death as she went. She didn’t make a conscious choice on where to jump to and with the next jump Umbra appeared in a circle empty of fighters except for one.

Umbra walked towards the chieftain, death and darkness pouring off her, she held Carn at her side it was practically vibrating in her hand. She wasn’t a person anymore just a conduit of death, and the chieftain was obstructing her. The lizard’s eyes widened in fear at Umbra’s approach. “What are you?” The chieftain asked. Umbra didn’t answer, so much magic flowed through her she didn’t think she could talk.

The chieftain frowned at Umbra’s silence, then stomped the ground, it cracked outwards under his foot heading for Umbra. She jumped towards him but he was already prepared, a solid wall of mud between Umbra and him. The earth shattered below Umbra and she fell into a bottomless pit. The top sealed immediately closing her in. It didn’t matter to Umbra though and she shadow-jumped into the night sky far above.

She could see the entire battle from up here, the defenders had retaken the walls but the reds were pushing through the doors. The chieftain had taken down the mud wall and stood over the now smooth earth. Umbra grinned he may have more spells but he was still going to die Umbra was sure of it.

Umbra prepared Carn and shadow-jumped behind the chieftain. the momentum from the fall throwing her at the chieftain’s unprotected back. It was then that she knew she had made a mistake, the chieftain was faster than she could imagine and was already turning around spear thrusting into Umbra’s stomach as she impaled herself on it down to the lizard’s hand, she screamed in pain and her legs turned to jelly, the spear the only thing holding her up.

The shadows around Umbra collapsed inwards and she coughed blood. The chieftain dropped his spear and Umbra crumbled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, she let out a groan of pain as the blood drained from the hole in her abdomen and back. “A child of the soft people,” the chieftain said in a surprised hiss. “That is n—,” A fist of stone crashed into the chieftain’s face and he flew out of Umbra’s sight. The earth shook and crashed and Umbra curled into herself clutching at her stomach trying to stem the bleeding.

Umbra was still channelling magic and it was the only reason she could endure the pain, but the wound wasn’t healing and she could feel herself growing weaker.

Umbra’s vision tunnelled and the world was silent, it was then clarity struck her and she realised what she had to do. Umbra used the last of her strength and fired threads of her magic into the field seeking out anything alive, they latched on to a few lizards and Umbra could feel them intimately; how they lay on the ground dying from their wounds and how she sped their demise pulling the last of their vitality into her.

The hole in Umbra’s body stopped bleeding and she could feel the skin closing around it. She grabbed Carn which had fallen beside her and struggled to her feet. She felt better with every passing second

She looked around for the chieftain who had almost killed her. The rising sun lit him. He was grappling the monstrous red lizard who had finally joined the fight and unintentionally saved her. The ground around them was cracking and shaking. Every step they took gave a resounding boom. She fired off more of the threads but no one was left alive on the field except for those two mages who shrugged of the threads of magic easily. Umbra gritted her teeth in frustration, she was still weak and needed the strength if she was going to kill the chieftain.

The two earth mages were too busy with each other to notice Umbra focusing on her masses of magic which had grown far beyond anything she was familiar with. She released it in a jagged edge of magic that flew straight into the chieftain, who immediately crumpled and Umbra gasped as all of her magic left her body, it didn’t matter Umbra’s channelling pulled in more magic from the saturated air and the vitality from the chieftain flowed into her through the thread of magic she had buried in him. It was an insane feeling, she felt as if she could punch through solid rock.

The red lizard looked a bit surprised but jumped on the chieftains weakness and hammered him into the earth. The red lizard didn’t stop there, he planted his clawed foot on the chieftain’s chest, and grabbed the sides of the chieftain’s head and with a sickening tearing noise ripped the chieftains head clean off his body. Umbra shivered when the mage died. The magic from his death was completely different it swamped the air as if a dam had just broken, and was so potent it reminded her of the first time she had channelled death magic.

Umbra resisted the urge to fall into a trance, there was still one more alive thing on the field and it needed to die. The field was too bright for shadow-jumping but she didn’t need to jump. She focused her magic which was mostly restored and released it in a replica of what she had done to the chieftain. The red lizard was ready for her though, and her magic buried itself into him only to be pushed back out, not all of it though. Umbra could feel his vitality slowly seeping into her and she smiled at the lizard across the field.

The slight girl and the monstrous lizard stood in the rising sun, Umbra’s pale skin and hair were unnatural in the sunlight; they didn’t reflect the light as they should. The magic gathered in her again, and the red lizard rushed her in alarm stone bursting from his body covering him in armour. Umbra fired off her spell but the lizard brushed off the majority of it again. It didn't matter anyways he was already growing weaker.

Umbra ran to meet the lizard her powered body closing the distance in the blink of an eye. Umbra dodged to the side as soon as the lizard got close enough to reach her, he had more reach than her knife. His flying fist passed by her face and she darted under his temporarily outstretched arm and drove Carn into his armpit cutting through the stone like it was butter, the red lizard hissed and jumped back wrenching Carn from her grasp.

The lizard circled Umbra slowly and Umbra eyed her knife that had fallen to the ground under the lizard’s feet. She wasn’t too worried about waiting, she was sapping away at his vitality and soon he would be too weak to fight her. The lizard seemed to recognise this too and charged her again, Umbra leaped past his bullish charge towards Carn. Even with her stolen strength, she doubted she would walk away if she got hit by one of the red lizard’s stone fists.

Umbra landed on her stomach near her knife and grabbed it from the mud. She spun around to meet the monster lizard, who had charged back towards her. She scrambled backward rapidly trying to get to her feet, but he was on her his stone fist closing around her waist, crushing it in his grasp, Umbra winced as her bones crunched together. The lizard lifted her up crushing her in his grasp, Umbra stabbed through the stone, piercing into the scales of his arm. His hands only tightened around her waist and Umbra could feel her bones breaking. She screamed and tried wildly to slash him in the face, but he held her at arm's length too far for her to reach anything but his arms which she slashed at in desperation.

The lizard didn’t even flinch and Umbra felt her body crumpling under his grasp, she screamed in defiance and pain and threw Carn at his face. The knife seemed to pull itself towards the lizard burying itself in his cheek. The lizard growled and dropped Umbra, reaching up to his face. Umbra fell to the ground groaning in pain, but she wasn’t going to waste this moment and she released all her magic into a jagged thread and fired it into the hurt earth mage.

It latched on and Umbra’s body healed itself, her bones cracking painfully as they pulled back together. The red lizard collapsed to the knees Umbra’s knife in his hands. Umbra’s magic ran rampant through his body, stealing his strength from him.

Umbra closed the short distance between them instantly, ripped the knife from his grasp and buried it hilt deep through the stone armour and into his neck. Umbra could see the look of surprise in his eyes and she couldn’t help but smile a bit as he collapsed onto his face, his death adding to the magic.

Umbra laughed as she felt the death around her, she was full of its power and the death of the two mages alone was more powerful than the almost 400 normal dead lizards.

She sat down in front of the monstrous dead lizard and concentrated on channelling the magic that covered the entire field, it was more magic than Umbra had ever experienced and she lost herself in the pleasure of channelling allowing herself to fall into a trance.

Umbra’s senses expanded at some point and she closed her channels with great reluctance to focus on the changed world around her. She could sense deeper intricacies to the magic around her and her awareness had spread allowing her a vague awareness of everything around her to about the edge of the swamp.

It also brought her attention to Carn which seemed to pull slightly at the ambient magic, creating little whirlpools of magic around it. Umbra studied her knife carefully, it seemed to want the magic. She thought for a second and tried to build a channel into the dagger much like she had done for herself right at the start. It was difficult the knife was inanimate and the channel fell to pieces many times before she managed to create something that held itself together, the magic was redirected into the knife and Umbra felt it start to vibrate subtly and grow warmer.

She started shoving the knife’s channels open wider and soon it was pulling in an immense amount of magic, Umbra watched in interest as it grew and then started burning red hot. Umbra threw it away with a yelp on to the mud where it seared, vibrating rapidly.