Verdan’s mind was racing as he took in what was happening. Three assailants in guard uniforms were already rushing through the door, blades in hand. Two more attackers stood just behind them, also in guard uniforms but giving off a palpable aura of power. Sorcerers.

As if to confirm Verdan’s thought, one of the Sorcerers made a throwing gesture, and a ripple of thunderous discharge swept through the air to strike his shield.

The attack was as powerful as it was loud, and Verdan grimaced in pain as he threw extra Aether into his defences while partitioning his mind.

“Gwth!” Verdan shouted, slamming a chunk of Aether into a crude visualisation and unleashing the spell with a sharp motion.

A wave of force blasted across the room, ripping furnishings from the walls as it picked up the three attackers and threw them into the far wall.

The Sorcerer who’d initially spoken stepped over the concussed body of one of their minions and drew a throwing knife from their belt, Essence swirling around it as the blade seemed to darken.

With a flick of his wrist, the Sorcerer sent the knife flying at Verdan, an ugly smile spreading over his face as he continued walking towards them both.

The knife struck the edge of Verdan’s shield and sank deep into it, the blade punching all the way through before getting stuck.

Verdan made a snap judgement as he took in how the Essence in the blade was destroying his shield. He wasn’t completely sure what Essence that was, but it was incredibly destructive, and a close-quarters fight like this wouldn’t favour him at all.

“Hold onto me, as tight as you can,” Verdan said quietly in Natalia’s direction, his attention remaining on the sorcerers as he shaped his shield to remove the knife and cover the hole it had made.

A tinge of relief swept through Verdan as he felt Natalia grip him, he’d been worried about how she might be reacting, but he couldn’t spare any time to check on her.

“Nowhere to hide, little Wizard. Your pet Sorcerer is away, and so are those Witches you’re trying to help. Any more of your guards that get here will face the same fate as those at the gate. No, it’s just us now,” the approaching Sorcerer drawled, a fresh knife appearing in his hand. “Time to pay for the inconvenience you’ve caused.”

The Sorcerer smirked nastily at Verdan before lunging forward, his blade glimmering with lethal Essence.

“Hast,” Verdan barked, sending a pulse of Aether through himself as he quickened his body. The Sorcerer was already drawing close to his barrier, so Verdan dropped the shield, turned on his heel and sprinted for the window. “Durst!”

Aether shot out from his outstretched hand to fracture and disrupt the window, causing it to shatter and explode outwards in much the same way his door had been destroyed only moments before.

Verdan and Natalia soared out through the hole, a searing pain digging into Verdan’s calf as he propelled them into the air.

“Hefan. Ast.” Verdan kept casting as quickly as he could, wrapping a shield around them and slowing their fall.

A series of ear-splitting cracks rang out over the estate as the two of them were buffeted by the spells the other Sorcerer was throwing around. Thankfully, though they had an area of effect to them, Verdan’s hover spell was reducing the impact of the rapidly shifting air.

Verdan couldn’t help but look over to the gates as they reached the ground, his heart sinking as he saw two dark forms crumpled on the ground. The Sorcerer hadn’t been idly boasting, it seemed.

The rest of the estate was in an uproar from the flurry of loud spells that had been thrown around, and the first person outside was a furious-looking Ruan.

The old guard was only wearing shorts but had a pair of axes in hand and wasted no time rushing to Verdan’s side.

“Boss, your leg!” Ruan tried to stop Verdan from rising, but the Wizard shrugged him off and reached down to pull the knife from his calf with a grunt. He could feel the foreign Essence inside his leg, eating away at him.

“Hyn tyn,” Verdan said through gritted teeth, one hand coming down to draw the caustic energy from the wound and cast it harmlessly aside.

“Come on, we’ve got to get you away,” Ruan said, reaching down to Verdan again.

“No, take Natalia inside, protect her, understood?” Verdan said, snapping out his orders as he pushed a disorientated Natalia into Ruan’s arms. There was no retreating from this now.

Blood had been spilt, and he’d see it avenged.

An exclamation of effort came from the broken window of Verdan’s room, and the Wizard turned to see the thunder-wielding Sorcerer throwing a bolt of condensed Essence at him.

To a Sorcerer or normal person, the attack was no doubt invisible, likely making it a particularly deadly attack in a Sorcerer duel.

Verdan was a Wizard, though, and manipulating energy was what he did.

“Agora,” Verdan fed Aether into the concept of opening the spell, releasing it into the approaching attack and unravelling the tight control the Sorcerer had imposed on it.

A Wizard would have put some protection against such an effort into the intent of the spell, forcing their opponent to use either two words or substantially more Aether to dispel it, but such arts were lost to Sorcerers, it seemed.

The thunderous Essence exploded in a fury of sound and force that swept over them and made Ruan stagger a little, but the brunt of it was wasted on the empty air.

“Tyn,” Verdan snarled, making a grasping hand at the exposed Sorcerer as bands of Aether leapt out to arc around a barely-visible shield the man had in place.

The first rule of shields against spells was that anything short of complete coverage left openings, a fact that the thunder Sorcerer learned firsthand as Verdan dragged him out from the top floor of the building and into the open air.

The man screamed as he fell headfirst toward the ground below but managed to cast some sort of spell that slowed his descent at the last moment. It was still a heavy impact, but not enough to incapacitate or kill him.

Taking a moment to glance behind him, Verdan relaxed somewhat as he saw that Ruan was already shepherding her into the workshop, with Pania and Pawel emerging to join Verdan a moment later.

The arrival of some more reinforcements reminded Verdan that, at worst, all he had to do was hold out until everyone was here. These two Sorcerers were strong, but they weren’t a match for Verdan and his allies in a straight fight.

Turning back to the mansion, Verdan saw the three false guards emerge and rush to help the thunder Sorcerer back to his feet. A pair of crossbow bolts flew past Verdan as Pawel and Pania entered the fray.

Despite his injuries, the thunder Sorcerer threw a contemptuous hand up, conjuring an almost invisible barrier of scintillating energy. It was a strong barrier, but there was an odd feeling to it that Verdan focused on.

The Essence used felt like sound and destruction to Verdan; it would try to destroy any physical things that passed through it rather than block them, an interesting application of magic, allowing the Sorcerer at least a small amount of defence.

Unfortunately for their target, the bolts that Verdan’s guards had fired were sheathed in the protective embrace of a shieldbreaker enchantment.

The enchantment wasn’t designed to protect against a destructive barrier, but the mere presence of the Aether in the bolts gave them some minimal resistance to the effect.

The majority of the two bolts were destroyed passing through the shield, but the core survived, allowing the bolts to retain their lethality.

The Sorcerer had moved just enough as he stood to avoid the bolts, but one of the minions wasn’t so fortunate and caught both in their chest.

The thunder Sorcerer looked horrified, but the one who wielded the highly destructive Essence had a hungry expression as he stared at Pawel and Pania, taking in the well-stocked quivers they bore.

“Aer,” Verdan shaped and threw a series of air blades at the group, forcing them to shelter beneath the Sorcerer’s shield while the guards reloaded.

“Enough of this,” the thunder Sorcerer cried with wild eyes, releasing their shield and pouring Essence out into an overcharged version of the destructive sphere he’d fired earlier.

The last air blade that Verdan had fired swept through to cut deep into the arm of one of the two remaining mundane fighters, but the Sorcerers paid them no heed.

“Ast,” Verdan conjured a wide shield, sheltering everyone around him from the building attack he could see. He considered trying to take the Sorcerer down before he could unleash it, but the second Sorcerer had moved to support him and would no doubt protect him.

Verdan saw that the guards had reloaded and opened a hole in his shield momentarily. While the bolts would pass through without issue, the enchantment might disrupt it; he didn’t know how far from his own Aether it was now.

One bolt caught the thunder Sorcerer in the shoulder as he was in the process of unleashing his attack, while the second missed as the other Sorcerer nimbly dodged out of the way.

The mass of thunderous Essence bore down on Verdan’s shield as he pumped as much Aether into it as he could as he prepared to mark both Sorcerers for the ward to start working against them.

The ward would only last for a short time, so he needed to use it at the optimum moment.

“I got it!” Tom roared as he came powering in from the side, each step boosting him forward with unnatural power as the ground seemed to move in synergy with him.

With the remnants of his quickening spell still active, Verdan had time to take Tom’s appearance and get a feeling for the plentiful energies that surrounded him.

Tom was clad entirely in grey stone, far more than Verdan had seen him in before, and he lacked his shield but held a large mace in both hands, the head of which was all but glowing with a deep brown energy.

Tom’s charge allowed him to intercept the projectile, and he brought his mace down in a two-handed swing to strike the spell, the concentrated Aether within the mace’s head ripping through the projectile and causing it to explode early, sending Tom flying back the way he’d come.

Somehow, the stone armour had survived the explosion and Aether interaction, so Verdan was fairly confident he’d be safe.

“Damn it!” Verdan cursed as he realised that their opponents had taken the opportunity afforded by the distracting attack to flee, leaving their fallen comrade where they had fallen.

Withdrawing as much Aether as he could from the shield before he dismissed it, Verdan started giving out orders as more people arrived.

The whole fight had lasted mere moments, though the area around the mansion was strewn with debris and had a small crater where the projectile had gone off.

Verdan barely took it all in, though, as his eyes were locked onto the two fallen figures at the gate, one of which was doing its best to crawl into the estate.