Chapter 101 — A Trap Sprung

“Code: orichalcum is confirmed. …may His Majesty long reign.”

The words resolutely spoken snapped Tensley from his shock, and he looked up in horror from the collapsing pair as the minor noble who had only moments prior been quietly enjoying the gardens tossed the vault-summoned crossbow aside and another appeared in his hand already cocked. Strange paper wrapping the slotted quarrel burst into flames as the man raised the weapon to take another shot at Ria and the Vesali young master.

In a blur of snarling teeth and tearing claws, the witch-girl’s familiar crashed into the noble, sending blood flying and the second bolt off path. The noble died almost instantly, barely having a chance to scream out in pain, but it was too late. Ripples of spatial magic were already popping up all around the manor and grounds, and lights that could only be portals were appearing from where Tensley sensed the ripples. Movement in the hedge maze soon revealed itself to be an unknown man with a similar crossbow as the noble Ria’s familiar just killed, and at least a dozen more attackers could be seen and heard not far behind with more continually arriving as long as the portals stayed open.

“Ria!” the dark-haired hero’s daughter called out, already rushing toward her wounded friends, but upon seeing the next threat coming, charged to meet it, ash billowing out to form a spear in her hand and armor around her body. “Ranger! Keep the assassins away from Ria!”

“Woof!”

The wardog was soon smashing into another target with another sound of a cut-off scream, cracking bones, and rent flesh.

Tensley couldn’t help looking at the regally-dressed pair unmoving on the ground, the quarrel’s fins barely sticking out from a hole formed in Phaelys’ cloak and clothing. The unbelievable sight of both Ria and Phaelys clearly having fallen without a fight drew a curse from Tensley. He had only followed them out to the garden to possibly overhear something useful or stumble upon an opportunity to further embarrass the foreign girl, but if he let her die here… Master Leita had been very clear that the girl wasn’t to be permanently harmed.

Not waiting for the thoughts to run their course, he was already swirling smoke to hide the pair and used tendrils to yank both away from their previous position. The Vesali boy’s breathing was making gurgling sounds, and steam was coming off Ria as glowing golden veins formed on her skin and dangerously unstable divine power was leaking from her. Both conditions looked potentially rather bad, if not fatal.

A barked warning was followed by a swordsman’s slash, and an arc of condensed sharpness cut through Tensley’s smoke, revealing fountaining blood and a local baronet sliding in half, a disbelieving expression on the dying noble’s face. The baronet had gotten close without Tensley even noticing!

“Get them to the high priests inside! I’ll hold things here!” the swordsman ordered, rushing past to meet the rapidly growing number of enemies coming from all directions.

The wardog growled warily and was also beginning to glow. Making placating words and hand motions to Ria’s familiar, Tensley did as ordered. Not just Master Leita's ire, he couldn’t dare draw the ire of that swordsman whose sword-aura could cleave his magic as if it weren’t even there and who could so easily kill nobles! The wardog was soon distracted by more attackers that got through from other parts of the garden and reached them.

Working quickly amid the growing sounds of battle and death, he directed his semi-solid smoke tendrils to expand underneath the unconscious girl and boy, laying them out side by side on cushions of solidified smoke behind him as he rushed back into the safety of the great hall-

-only to find chaos and fights springing up within the hall itself!

Several portals were open inside the hall and dark-clad enemies were joining the fight with terrifying light-absorbing weapons that cleaved through guests and guards alike.

Tensley’s arm and neck hair raised at the clashing domains and powerful magic being prepared on all sides.

A deep voice suddenly echoed through the manor and his mind, “Hemse rebukes the wolves among his flock, making visible to all the wolf hiding in the bushes, the wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.”

A spike of fear shot through Tensley at the contents of the High Priest’s beseechment, but as the divine magic spread out wrapping enemies in spectral wolf apparitions, as much as he fretted, no wolf apparition formed around him.

But a guest rushing over with a concerned expression did have a wolf apparition, and a blade bloomed from the woman’s chest. The woman collapsed, mouth open and eyes rolling up into her head, as a modestly dressed goateed man behind her withdrew the blade and impatiently growled at Tensley, “Do not hesitate. Force a path! I will cover you.”

Another! Hidden guards? Hidden Inquisitors?

Tensley set aside his questions, and drew upon more of his element to clear his way through the panicking attendees and ran toward the end of the hall where the four priests and the manor’s lord and lady were surrounded by a loose perimeter of guards and important guests.

Loud booms and crashes sounded and the ground shook as the glass windows shattered inward sending debris at the guests inside, the force almost knocking Tensley off his feet before he could muster his smoke into a barrier to protect himself and his charges from the flying glass and stone.

Many of the others weren’t so lucky, and the path he was clearing quickly closed with sprawled and injured guests. The most obvious solution wasn’t ideal with the enemy having crossbows and ranged magic, but Ria’s condition seemed to be worsening to the point that—even unconscious—her magic was starting to burn through his smoke as fast as he could replace it.

Knowing there wasn’t much time left, he drew heavily from the elemental heart he was wearing, forming a bridge through the air, and worked a spell matrix for the alteration magic to solidify it. It was only thanks to Presius’ constant practice drills that he could complete the spell with so many distractions. He was in motion as soon as the spell’s effect took hold. The goateed man followed him onto the cloud bridge over the guests and the fighting.

As Tensley ran along the solidified smoke, below, a flood of boot-deep water spread out along the floor to the walls before a surge of incredibly powerful ice magic caused pillar-sized spikes of ice to rise up from it and block off all entry into the great hall. From his elevated vantage he could guess that it was a combined magic from Lord Jevaran and Lady Asara.

Further explosions rocked the great hall as master mages unleashed their magics against each other. The outside sounded even worse.

Heightened senses and training alerting him of immediate danger, Tensley desperately hardened shields of smoke around himself and the cloud conveyance behind him as whizzing sounds rushed toward his position from multiple directions.

FWISH, PING, CLANG, CLACK, CLANG!

His smoke sucked away in the direction of each impact of metal on metal, and his eyes widened at the sparks appearing in front of his face from the goateed man’s blade knocking a projectile off course. The projectile that had almost killed him sucked away his magic as it fell through the bridge.

Voidstone!

Was that how they took out Ria and the Vesali boy so easily?

Flashes of coral green and another set of clangs snapped Tensley’s gaze to the sight ahead of him. The Vesali chaperone that had been accompanying Ria and Phaelys had risen up on a pillar of green crystal, crystal pommeled weapons spiraling around her and flashing out to strike down the continuing attacks sent his way.

Though his bridge spell was unraveling, Tensley only needed a few more running strides to launch himself over the heads of the guards and into a space cleared for him and the two carried behind him.

“Ria!”

“Cousin!”

A pair of Ria’s friends and the two Vesali girls that debuted earlier called out in dismay.

“Jevaran,” Lady Asara prompted from just a bit away, eyes glowing with power and her aura flaring like a 100-span high wave crashing down as it blended with the feel of her husband’s deepest winter ice.

Lord Jevaran’s magic poured down his weapon, one of those strange rounded estocs the Novidus liked to use as focus tools, and into the waters of Lady Asara’s domain. A crystalline crunch sounded from elsewhere in the hall. “Got him.”

“Make way!” a monk shouted as the High Priestess of Ellnys brushed past him and the others that had rushed forward with concern.

“Mors! I’m going to need your help with this!” the high priestess yelled as she reached Ria’s side and directed the monk toward Phaelys.

“I’m here, Elora,” Ohgrem’s high priest gently pushed Tensley out of the way.

“The poison is destructively overwhelming her bloodline. Dragonbane, if I’m right,” High Priestess Elora evaluated with her hand pressed to Ria’s forehead, the bones of her hand showing dark against the strength of Ria’s glow. “You’ll need to dissipate the excess energy she’s generating.”

“Right,” High Priest Mors Restille affirmed, and as he began chanting, the oddly blackening glow around Ria lessened.

Tensley blinked. Did he hear right? Ria was a dragon?! Or maybe part dragon? Dragon-kin?

Tensley’s thoughts went to Master Letia’s white hair, lightning-rimmed silver eyes, master-level skill, and young appearance. Was Master Letia also a dragon?

Could she be Ria’s mother?

“Time is against us. I’m going to need Researcher Shadwich if we’re to save her ability to use magic,” the high priestess grumbled as she dribbled a liquid into Ria’s mouth and took out a sinister branch of blackened wood that began to suck something out of Ria’s body.

“I’ll get him,” Xander’s high priest cheerfully volunteered and disappeared with a snap of his fingers, revealing Hemse’s high priest still focusing on the revealing prayer he had performed earlier.

Why would these high priests go so far for a foreign witch-girl—who might not even be human?

A sound of crystal shaping and refracted purple light in the corner of his vision pulled Tensley’s attention back to his surroundings where the Phaelys’ cousins were forming a protective dome of crystal around where the priests were working on saving Phaelys and Ria.

“How could this happen? Wasn’t Zena keeping watch on Ria?” the chubby blond friend of Ria’s fretted, looking distraught.

The mind-mage girl squeezed the Vorshan girl’s hand to comfort her and muttered, “It must have happened quickly if even Phaelys couldn’t protect her.”

“If Zena and Ranger are not here…,” Young Lord Faris started to say from beside the mind mage then let the sentence trail off with a grimace.

“Ria’s wardog, a crazy strong swordmaster, and the hero’s daughter are still out there fighting the attackers last I saw,” Tensley offered, motioning in the direction of the wall of ice.

Grim looks were exchanged between Ria’s friends, and they all looked toward the red-haired boy beside Ria’s chubby friend.

“All of us?” the red-haired boy asked.

And with nods all around, the red-haired second year formed a spell matrix, and the group of four wordlessly vanished in a ripple of spatial magic, replaced by a smell of gardens and freshly spilled blood.

Ria’s friends were brave and loyal to each other. He’d give them that.

Another ripple of powerful spatial magic above him snapped Tensley’s gaze upward. More enemies?!

Rather than enemies, standing on a platform of light were a group of four mages he recognized! The chubby girl and red-haired boy’s parents!

“This is terrible,” the lady of House Touften gasped, taking in the fierce fighting.

“They are not here,” the blond woman growled out and beams of light lanced out at enemies in the hall.

The dark-haired man beside her was consulting a scroll. “Outside, in the garden.”

And with a “Right. Let us hurry,” the red-haired lord of House Touften made the group of four disappear in the same way they had appeared.

Chaos all around, Tensley wondered if Sophia was okay and whether he should go look for her. The girl might have been lucky to have left in search of a powder room with her chaperone before the attack. Still, as her escort, not being by her side when she might be in danger didn’t sit well with him—even if the main reason she agreed to go with him was to cause trouble for Ria.

As the man’s ridiculous black claymore cut through another expensive spear and again ate her magic, Zena sent out a burning wave of ash and jumped backward to buy enough time to summon a mithril one from her vault. Holding back here would see her dead. She already had a freely bleeding slice across her thigh and forearm from the first two times he cut through her weapon, one conjured ash and the other an arena spear.

She had initially been able to catch a few of the enemy by surprise and dispatch them, but this grizzled older man—old enough to have streaks of gray in his carefully trimmed beard—had pressured her enough to let the rest get by, and now, he was rapidly cornering her.

Sounds of explosions echoed from the direction of the manor. She could only hope that someone was able to get Ria and Phaelys to safety. She couldn’t flee. This man was both skilled and powerful, and if a man this capable was allowed to join the assault on the event, it could mean a terrible number of deaths.

No. She had to hold him as long as possible.

But what was her determination in the face of overwhelming skill and strength? Her burning embers cooled to cold dead ash before even reaching the man, no longer hers but his.

CLANG!

Zena thanked the gods that the gift from her mom had deflected the strange and terrifying sword—a sword with a divine metal aura that reminded her of Ria’s new domain spell, her true domain, not the shadow one.

“Oh? You found a weapon sturdy enough? Guess an old man can have one last round of fun before greeting the gods after all,” the man said, pausing only long enough to deliver a grim smile before moving with a grace of decades of honed skill.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The heavy blade moved with a speed that belied its tremendous weight, and Zena could barely parry or deflect the air-rending slashes and lightning quick stabs as she desperately yielded ground, trying to draw him deeper into the garden and away from the manor.

If her burning embers wouldn’t work, maybe a wave of fire would work better? Zena made another wave of embers and turned them to fire right away, but it made no difference. Her flames stilled away to nothingness just as quickly as her embers had.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“I am impressed. Your branch of the family has greatly improved upon Aunt Fiorel’s variant of our Emberstill bloodline,” her opponent lightly mused.

Her shock almost caused her to miss a parry and had the man irritatingly chiding her inattention. But she could not ignore what he had casually revealed.

Her opponent was an Emberstill! A member of the Ducal mainline!

Zena couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it from the first time he stilled her ashes and took control of them!

“Why? Why are you attacking us?” She managed to yell out as she deflected a stab and rolled away to dodge a slash. “What can Revant hope to achieve with this? Crysellia will never let this go unanswered!”

In her distracted state, she didn’t notice that he was shepherding her movements until a backward dodge resulted in her back striking upon the wide trunk of a large tree and knocking the wind out of her. She was trapped!

The man let the end of his sword lean against the seating area’s grass and made a regretful expression. “I thank you for the dance, young cousin. Sadly, the mission calls, and I must fulfill my duty to king and country.”

If it was to be her end, Zena was not going down without expending everything she had, useless as it might be. She summoned her staff in her free hand and channeled all her fury and desperation into calling forth a flow of embers to force her way past him.

A domain of suffocating stillness spread out from the man, and even with her staff, he overwhelmed her magic. The flames in her embers died, the ash left her control, and a weakness spread through her body as the fires within went cold.

“Having to kill such a promising young lady of our blood leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but unfortunately, I cannot leave someone of your strength behind to kill my countrymen. The least I can do to honor your warrior spirit is to return your body to your mother in one piece. Farewell.”

Zena despaired. The ash that was hers now held her in place as his sword stabbed toward her heart. All her ambition. All her hard won victories. Everything had come to naught in the end.

CLANG!

She could only cry out in confusion as the blade passed through the fold of her elbow and cleanly severed her arm. The sight of a certain sword-wielding mushroom between her and her Revanti relative clued her in as to what happened, and feeling Iselyn’s domain envelop her and fill the air with spores, she didn’t hesitate, igniting the spores and calling upon her embers to throw herself to the side and away, away from the enemy she now knew outclassed her in every way.

She didn’t get far before the pain of her disconnected arm muscles snapping upward inside her skin narrowed her vision and made her stumble to her remaining hand and knees. She had done what she could.

With clenched teeth and her last drop of will, she seared her blood-gushing stump with burning ash before welcoming the encroaching darkness.

Amilee clicked her tongue in annoyance as a commoner girl and a boy protecting the girl were cut down by one of the assassins before her wolf’s puppet could get there. That was going to lower her mission evaluation. It was doubly annoying that the weapons these assassins used could injure her bound spirits, requiring her to be more cautious in how she attacked and defended.

Vicious Fang was excited to be released and express his aggression, leaping against and off of the wall of ice to pounce with surprise, his mithril fangs tearing out the assassin’s throat. Certain the assassin was dead, she sent her wolf spirit to kill another still attacking guests.

As she caught up, Amille glanced down at the gasping girl and the whimpering boy now holding his face together from a long cut that went through his jaw and eye.

“Ellen hold on! The priests can still save you!” the boy was pleading to the girl through his bleeding, slashed lips.

No, they can’t.

The girl’s wound was clearly fatal, and the astral damage the strange weapons caused prevented common magical healing.

Deciding against temporarily binding the girl’s soul to its rapidly failing body, Amilee moved on to the next threat. The fight inside the hall was already approaching its inevitable conclusion, and the sooner the remaining attackers were subdued, the sooner the priests and nature mages could act.