Erin of Calway 2

Yes, you heard that number right. Several hundred Blukes are about to attack Calway. But that is not all. There are Brutes and Beastfolk too, and they are all led by a Gator-Mage from southern lands.

I see the disbelief in your faces. You know as well as I do that a force of that magnitude would be enough to utterly destroy most towns. You wonder how Erin could even be alive if what I say is true. But the birthplace of Erin the Great is as strong and unique as she is. There will be a fight, not a slaughter, even though the malice of a great power is directed at Calway. Listen well as I tell you of the events that set Erin onto the road of greatness:

Sight and Judgment

Erin stopped juggling when she heard the Blukes yell. After a flurry of movement, she was holding the four burning torches in her left hand. From her vantage point on the back of the chair, she could see over the crowd. She looked down the road, toward the source of the noise.

The Slug was thundering back to Calway at a speed Erin never would have thought possible. The thing was covering as much ground as a galloping horse. Linebarger the Litling merchant had wedged himself in among the baggage, and this action was protecting him from flying arrows and tomahawks, as well as keeping him from falling off The Slug.

But somehow, the Bluke infantry behind the lumbering beast was keeping the pace. Their stride was rushed and unnatural, their legs moving with impossible speed. Erin knew by seeing this that that there must be magic involved. But, somehow, she did not need this observation to know about the magic. She sensed it in a way that most closely resembled scent. There was a rank sharp smell in the air, subtle but pervasive, like a dead skunk in the distance. It was moving closer with every second.

Erin guessed that there were at least three hundred braves, all on foot. They were clearly from the local Screaming Eagle Tribe. Their dark brown faces were painted with red ochre. There were both male and female warriors, but it was hard to tell the difference between them. They wore the same kind of armor and had the same makeup and hair. This long hair was pulled into braids, and feathers of eagles and griffins were woven into these braids. These feathers also decorated as their well-crafted leather clothing. The ones in front that Erin could see carried simple light weapons: tomahawks, javelins, and spears.

But the back ranks carried large, long swords and pole arms. These were the heavy fighters. Erin knew that the standard method of Screaming Eagle fighting was for the front line skirmishers to rush in, getting around and behind the enemy. They wanted to cause as much chaos as possible, but not get in hand to hand fighting. That was the job of the heavily armed and armored back rank, who moved in to exploit a disorganized enemy. They were the true fighters of the tribe.

But they were not the most lethal attackers in the attacking force. Behind the local braves there were about three dozen magical beasts of various kinds and at least eight Brutes. The magical beasts resembled bears or wolves or giant cats, but their physique had been warped and twisted by unnatural forces. Their movements were unpredictable, and they moved with a strength and speed that could not be produced by mere muscle. In some of them, metal or stone or stranger materials were melded with their flesh.

The Brutes were massive humanoids. These Brutes all looked like massive bears, but they had human faces with cold, intelligent eyes. They carried metal weapons and wore excellent armor, and looked around with cunning strategy and focus. None of these creatures lived in the Tuck valley; they must have been gathered from the cold peaks of the Gray Ridge Mountains to the north.

Torches and Leadership

Erin guessed that they had a minute and a half, at most, before the invading force reached the town of Calway. She still had the attention of the crowd that had been gathered around her watching her juggle, and she used it.

"I want to see ordered movement! Anyone who can fight, form ranks across the road! Anyone who can't, move to the granary!" With that, she jumped off the chair and started shoving people in the proper directions with her right hand. Her attitude suggested that she would gladly start pushing with her left hand, and the torches in it, if people did not move fast enough. But this was not necessary. One or two of the men looked like they wanted to run to the granary, but most faced the oncoming horde willingly, knowing that they alone could protect themselves and their families.

The inhabitants of Calway were naturally strong and self-reliant, and Aaron's rule had encouraged this. He had let it be known that the people under his rule were responsible for their own affairs. They would take care of themselves and demand little from him, and in return he would collect in tax only what was needed for public works and basic government functions.

Rather than hire soldiers to sit around idly until they were needed, Aaron had spent a lot of time giving basic military training to every inhabitant of Calway who was able-bodied and strong-willed. This was about sixty percent of the population. Of the three hundred or so people in the market, this left about two hundred fighters and one hundred people who needed to get inside the granary.

Erin's brother Andrew was giving the crowd the same orders that she was, and so was Friar Kantz. Between the three of them, they formed a solid line of armed men and women in about fifteen seconds. There was no need to pass out weapons; everyone had carried their axe or knife throughout the day. No matter how unwieldy it may have been, such a prized possession was not to be left sitting around on a busy street.

By way of a few quick glances and gestures, these leaders agreed that Kantz and Andrew would direct the line of fighters, while Erin would collect children and other stragglers and take them back to the granary.

Erin took a few seconds to survey the area. She was standing in the middle of the street. In front of her, the line of armed men and women extended from the cooper's workshop on the left to the blacksmith's shop on the right. It was a good position. A solid line of houses and shops protected each flank. The Blukes could not easily surround them or get past them.

Of course, it was clear from the charge of the attackers that they felt no need to use such strategy. If the two groups were to collide head-on and brawl, the Blukes would surely win. Everyone knew that the Screaming Eagles were strong and fast, and that they fought with skill.

But the town leaders had no intention of letting the fight degenerate into a brawl. In front of the line of villagers stood Kantz on the right flank and Andrew on the left flank.

Kantz was intoning words that were part sermon, part command, and part spell. "The people of Calway will stand firm and fight well. They will save themselves and their families and their town from any threat that may rise against it." His voice was steady and calming, but also uplifting. Erin could tell that there was serious magic behind it. She sensed it as a soft pleasing scent, like fresh warm bread just out of the oven.

Andrew was not saying anything. He was simply standing there with his rapier drawn, looking confident and impressive. He was a reassuring presence and a bulwark against the oncoming horde. Erin suspected that this image had more do with Kantz's spell as his own quality, but she had to admit that officer training had done much for Andrew's bearing.

R. A. Yoder was also on the left flank, but he was behind the line of armed villagers. He was busy chalking a massive magical rune on the front wall of the cooper's shop. Directly opposite him, The Apprentice was chalking a similar rune on the wall of the blacksmith's shop. Erin could not sense or recognize this magic; it had not happened yet. But she could tell that Kantz was aware of the action and approved of it, and that was good enough for her.

Behind the defenders, and around Erin, there were about a dozen people who, due to youth, drink, or innate foolishness, were panicking. There were several crying children who had been separated from their parents, and two mothers desperately looking for their children. Most of the drunks were too soused to move, but one was not. Old man Dellinger had grabbed a grain flail and was lashing about as he raved incoherently.

Erin yelled at him in her best commanding voice, "Dellinger, put that thing down before you hurt someone."

It did not work. Dellinger interpreted this as a Bluke's challenge, and rushed her with the flail. Erin's throat tightened and her stomach twisted into a knot as she watched him approach. Dellinger was a tough old man, and the drink had not slowed his body as it had slowed his mind. She would have only one chance to do this right. Her father's training and advice flowed through her head. She sank into a light-footed combat stance and shifted one of the torches into her right hand.

When Dellinger was about ten feet away, she threw the torch at his face. With a yell, the old man twitched to the side and brought the grain flail up. Erin dropped the other torches and lunged forward with her hands up to protect her face. After she had committed her weight, she saw that Dellinger swat the torch right out of the air with a well-placed swing of the flail. Sparks filled the air, and the flaming brand sailed away.

This swift and accurate handling of the flail showed Erin that she had seriously underestimated the old man, but it was too late to change her plan now. Her lunge connected, and she tackled Dellinger. She took him to ground, but he lashed out with the flail again as he fell, hitting Erin in the right kidney. Erin hissed in pain as tears welled up in her eyes. She was stunned for about a second, but it felt like a much longer time.

Panic and fear filled Erin's head. She was helpless, paralyzed by pain. The old man could hit her again and she would not be able to stop him. It was a stupid senseless thing, to get tangled up in this old fool when the village was being attacked, and it might kill them both.

But the second blow never came. Dellinger had hit the ground hard, and was as stunned as Erin. In any case, it would be impossible to swing the large flail at close quarters. Erin recovered from the blow enough to force her arm to move. She chopped down with her left hand and hit Dellinger in the jaw with the side of her fist. He squeaked and collapsed fully. Erin got to her feet, her side still aching.

Erin left Dellinger and the torches in the ground, and ran toward the two Weaver children, who were huddled near a wall. She told herself that it was right and proper to save the children first, and that she could get more of them to the granary because they were smaller. But part of her thought that Dellinger deserved to be lying in the street when the Blukes came. She grabbed the children as gently as she could without sacrificing haste, and rushed toward the fortress with one bawling child under each arm.

As Erin ran, she yelled at Mrs. Lail. "Your daughter is already inside the granary. Grab the Bolch boy and follow me in." It was a pure fabrication, but it was the only thing that Erin could think of to say. And it might be true. But the important thing was that it worked. The frightened woman immediately did as she was told, forgetting that Erin could not possibly know where her child was.

Erin then shouted a similar command at Mrs. Sigmon, with similar results. Mrs. Sigmon actually managed to grab two children as she followed Erin. Within the space of forty seconds, Erin had helped form the battle lines, stopped Dellinger from hurting anybody else, and gotten two women and five of children to safety. But there was no time to congratulate herself. There were still more people out there. With a grimace of pain as her right kidney twinged again, Erin turned around and went back into the town.

Earth and Light

Aaron was still on top of the granary. He was alone, for now. At the first sign of trouble, Mei had gone downstairs to lead and organize the flow of people coming into Calway's bastion. Aaron had also been examining the oncoming horde with both his physical and his magical senses. He sensed everything that Erin had seen, but he also sensed something far more deadly. When he did, he knew that he must take time to center himself, drawing on his deepest reserves of will and power.

Behind the beats and Brutes, there was another entity. He did not look nearly as imposing as the huge beings, at least to normal vision. It was doubtful that anyone on the ground could even see him. He was about seven feet tall, with a face that looked strong and handsome despite being made of green scales. He had none of the flab and excessive musculature of the Brutes, but he was thicker and obviously better fed than the Blukes. He wore a black silk cloak over fine chain mail made of a strange green metal. He carried a club in each hand. Each club was about four feet long and as thick as a strong man's arm. One club was made of jade, and the other was made of obsidian. The jade club was topped with a bear skull. The obsidian club was topped with a wyvern's skull. Black jewels glittered out of the bear's eye sockets, and green jewels were set in the wyvern's eyes.

It was a Gator-Mage. Aaron recognized it as the most dangerous attacker by far. It radiated magical power; it had cast a spell that gave unnatural haste to the entire horde. It was obviously the leader, the "messenger from the south" that had caused the Screaming Eagles to abandon Red Oak Spirit.

Aaron heard two of the Elit braves arrive on the roof. They were breathing heavily, huffing with the exertion of a quick run up the five-story building. Their small lean frames were good for speed and agility, but they tired easily. Still, they were good to have around in a fight, if they had a ranged weapon and you were able to keep them out of reach of the enemy. These two had their bows at the ready, and any amount of archery support would be a tactical advantage.

Without turning to look at them, he said, "There is a Gator-Mage here."

They continued to the crenellated wall and took a moment to see the enemy for themselves. Aaron could see them now. Their faces were dark and angular, with reddish skin and a thin bony structure. They wore simple cloaks made of a strange brown fiber. The Elit had to step up onto wooden boxes in order to be able to see over the wall. Then one of them said, "You must stop him. You are the only one who can."

Aaron nodded, and jumped. A simple flex of his legs propelled him to the top of The Granary's five-foot wall. He uttered a quick but powerful prayer: "Crystal Angel, give me wings and armor."

The granite stone he was standing own started to glow with divine power, as all of the dormant God's Blood inside it was activated. The stone disintegrated into sand, which flowed up onto Aaron as he sank into it. It covered his body, and then solidified into a suit of crystal plate mail covered in magic runes.

Then, three pairs of magic wings sprouted from the back of the back of the crystal armor. Each wing was fifteen feet long, white, and glowed brightly. They were feathered and jointed, like an angel's, but Aaron's feathers were not exactly like the standard paladin's feathers. They resembled very thin sheets of crystal cut into the shape of feathers.

Aaron jumped out into empty air, and the wings turned his fall into a glide. Aaron knew nothing about aerodynamics, but Crystal Angel did, and the god translated Aaron's thoughts into the proper physical and magical controls of the crystal wings. Aaron soared above the battle line of villagers, heading directly toward the oncoming attacking force. The next move would require careful timing. The Slug was almost inside the town now, and the horde was about three seconds behind it.

Aaron uttered another prayer. "Red Oak Spirit, Wall of Stone." The geology of the entire Tuck valley convulsed in response to his request, focusing force at the spot of Aaron's choosing. Just behind The Slug, dozens of boulders began to emerge from the ground road, scattering the ancient Selurian cobblestones.

In less than three seconds, they had formed a solid wall twelve feet tall. After the wall reached its full height, the front part of it started to turn to sand and flow down and into the cracks, so that the side facing the attackers was perfectly smooth and could not be climbed. The wall was as wide as the attackers' front, and it was growing sideways faster than they could run.

Linebarger's slug was still racing toward the town. The Litling soon realized that the situation had changed, and he got back in his saddle and worked to slow down the beast. But the thing had panicked. It was still headed straight for the line of villagers at full speed. They scattered, barely getting out of the way of the lumbering giant. After Linebarger passed, Andrew and Kantz worked to reform the line.

Aaron landed on his newly created wall and stood up straight. He still had his six glowing wings. He drew his weapon from his belt and held it out in front of him. His hand glowed briefly, and in less than a second, the little knife-like thing expanded into an eight-foot najinata. The cute fat dragon that had formerly decorated the handle shifted and grew into a long, lean, mean dragon. The blade of the najinata, now two feet long, shone with a shifting green-white light, like the noonday sun shining through the forest canopy. The green silk tassel at the end became a round orb of similar light.

The oncoming horde was confronted with a solid stone barrier topped with a grim and luminous being that was obviously well armed and very magical. Several of them ignored their fear and tried to climb the wall, using other Blukes as stepping stools. The loose sand whipped out and blinded them, sending them toppling back into the milling crowd.

Many more stayed where they were but threw tomahawks at Aaron. They did not simply toss away their weapons in desperation. They launched the axes with grim accuracy, testing this defender to see if he had more in him than light and tricks. Several dozen of the weapons sailed through the air, whirring with a sound like birds in flight. Aaron moved his weapon with several quick circular motions, weaving a web of green light. Several tomahawks bounced off the weapon. Several more bounced off thin air. None hit the Lord of Calway.

Aaron spoke to the Blukes in their native language, using the same booming Voice of Heaven and Earth that he had used to halt the panicking mob earlier in the day. "You have no quarrel with us. Turn back now, and go home."

It almost worked. The Blukes wondered what they were doing trying to attack people that they had lived peacefully with for generations. The beasts and Brutes wondered why they were down in this sweltering valley when they could be hunting mountain goats or digging new caves.

But the Gator-Mage had more willpower, and a more definite knowledge of his goal. He snarled, lifted up the obsidian club he held in his left hand, and pointed it at Aaron. There was a short, sharp sound, like a thunderclap, and three missiles erupted from the club. They were black spheres the size of a man's head, rimmed with crackling green fire. The blackness seemed to actively absorb all light, including the green fire on the rim. The flames spiraled slowly inward, never dying out and never quite reaching the center.

These missiles flew toward Aaron's torso. It would be easy enough to dodge them, but a person trained as a paladin could not allow such things to enter a village he had sworn to protect. Aaron folded his crystal wings over himself as the stones and sand of the wall wrapped themselves around his feet and legs and merged with his crystal armor.

The spheres of cold blackness hit Aaron's wings with terrible force. It was like being hit by cast iron kettles, filled with ice, dropped from the top of The Granary. The wings shattered as they absorbed the impact, emitting a burst of raw light magic and sending shards of crystal all directions. The spheres of darkness also shattered, breaking into tiny fragments before they could hit Aaron's body.

The pain of the wings shattering drove into Aaron's spirit. They had become an extension of his will, and therefore he paid the price in pain when they were lost. The injury was both external and internal, like a combination of a spear thrust and a slipped disk. At the same time, the evil God's Blood from the spheres flowed in a storm around his body. Most of the vile stuff had been neutralized, but there was still enough to consume and kill any person without magical defenses.

Evil God's Blood could consume anything, like a horde of tiny rats or locusts. It was an incarnation of the dark power of Gregu, God of Death, and it could only be fought by magic or the gods. Aaron told his armor to generate an invisible burst of holy power to kill the Blood floating in the air, and he also focused power to his own God's Blood, telling it to prepare for a Blood War with the stuff that had already swirled between the cracks in the armor, landed on him, and burrowed into his skin.

Aaron swayed backwards, the stones around his legs barely supporting him as he stood on the wall. But he gritted his teeth, making no sound and showing no pain, for there was still a chance to repel the Blukes with awe and willpower. Showing weakness would destroy any chance of that.

When his vision cleared, Aaron saw that most of the Blukes within twenty feet of him had been struck down. The shattered fragments of his wings had been just as deadly as the fragments of the spheres of blackness. The surviving Blukes looked up at him with fear or looked back at the Gator-Mage with anger.

The green-faced attacker snarled. His best magic attack had been spent with relatively little effect; this former paladin was indeed as strong as he had been told. He would have to be more subtle.

With a roar, the Gator-Mage raised the jade club above his head, and then slammed it into the ground with enough force to shatter a bear's skull. But the skull on the club did not break. Instead, the ground cracked and shook. Something happened deep within the ground, and the wall of stone that Aaron had raised began to collapse as quickly as it had been formed. In seconds, there was nothing to support his weight, and he fell to the ground as all of the boulders shattered into gravel and sand.

Aaron landed on his feet, but the Blukes were already surging past him, toward the village. It was too late to talk now. But there was good news. They were no longer affected by the haste spell that had been boosting their speed earlier. The Gator-Mage had been forced to abandon it in order to focus on Aaron. He looked toward the Gator-Mage and saw that the attacker was charging him. So, it would be a melee fight.

Still, there was time for one last spell to buy time for the village. Aaron struck the ground with the ball of green-white magic on the bottom of his weapon. The earth cracked and split, driving up rock spikes half as tall as a man. Only a few Blukes were clumsy or unlucky enough to fall into the cracks or be impaled by these spikes, but the rushing charge was halted as the braves were forced to slow down to pick their way through the suddenly hostile terrain.

Aaron did not have a chance to see what happened after that, because then the Gator-Mage was upon him. The green-faced attacker was running at full speed. He was focusing a great deal of power into the charge; the air around his two huge clubs became an oily green-black fog. Aaron responded by sinking into a deep, rooted stance and drawing power from the earth and the stars.

Their weapons met with a ferocious crash as the opposing magical powers cancelled each other out and released a great burst of raw uncontained power. The air was split with lightning and the ground was split with cracks. Aaron's feet were driven about an inch into the ground and his knees and ankles nearly buckled under the strain. But the Gator-Mage was flung backwards, flying several feet through the air and spinning around.

Aaron seized the opportunity and began to attack, striking at his opponent while the Gator-Mage was still in midair. But he did not take the foreign invader off guard. The Gator-Mage changed his direction in midair with a few deft bursts of magic, and settled to the ground in a fighting stance. Aaron still came in, swinging his weapon in graceful arcs and threatening the Gator-Mage with both ends. But the southern magi had two weapons, and he wielded each one with speed and skill.

In the first two seconds of battle, the weapons met a dozen times. Then, both combatants slowed down and fought more warily, carefully looking for an opening, knowing that this would be a match of wits and not just speed or power.

Cane and Knife

As this fight was starting, the rest of the attackers closed in on the town. They were hampered by the terrain, and their charge had turned into a slow relentless advance. Arrows began to whistle through the air into their ranks. There were four Elit braves on top of the granary now, and also Mei Lopez with her magical repeating crossbow. Several Blukes fell, but still the horde advanced.

Linebarger had managed to stop his slug and tie it up to a hitching post on the other end of the granary. He was on foot now, and he carried his eldritch gray dragon-headed cane in his left hand. With his right hand, he took something from his belt. It was a dark wooden stick, about a foot long, studded with green and purple gems. With calculated grace, he threw it. As soon as the odd device left his hand, all of the gems lit up. The thing looked like a dark cold firecracker as it spun through the air over the heads of the villagers.

Yoder sensed the thing behind his back as he chalked the rune on the wall. He spun around to look at it, and then yelled, "Cover your eyes!" Most of the people did not hear or heed him, but Friar Kantz did. The cleric repeated the order with much more volume and force, and he was obeyed.

A searing green flash lit up the night, and the ground shook. When the defenders uncovered their eyes, they saw purple sparks flitting through the air over the Bluke horde in an area the size of a large cottage. Yoder and Kantz recognized this as the typical after-effects of a large magical discharge.

Many Blukes had been stunned or blinded by the blast. They were the lucky ones. Beneath the purple sparks, there was a carpet of injured, dying, or dead braves. But still the survivors advanced, thinking that such magic was rare and that they would not have to suffer another blast.

They were right. Linebarger did not produce another weapon, but instead climbed up on top of the canvas awning of the baker's shop. Once he was up there, he did draw several more objects from his clothing. But they were not magical. They were small strange blades, and he held them between his fingers. Then, he waited.

Yoder finished scribing his vacuum rune on the cooper's shop. The Apprentice would take more time to finish the other rune, but that was to be expected. Yoder grabbed his staff and looked toward the attackers. He could see them over the heads of the villagers. He held the focus of his wizard's powers out at arm's length. It was a straight wooden staff, unadorned except for fifteen hawk feathers.

"Solar Summon: Servant Spirit!" As Yoder intoned these words, the staff began to glow with a white light. The light then flowed into the feathers, until the staff had no light but all fifteen feathers were bright and luminous. These feathers then detached themselves from the staff and began floating in the air.

A ghostly image of a hawk began to form around each of the floating feathers. The light from the feathers began to fill these images, and within a few seconds there were fifteen red-tailed hawks, all glowing with the light of a midday sun. They did not move exactly like normal birds, but instead traveled with a more fluid motion. They were ghostly and incorporeal. Their wings were nothing but a fading memory. In the older ones, even the shape of their bodies was blurry and indistinct. It was will, not muscle, that propelled them now.

They were the spirits of Yoder's past familiars, still bound to his will, their minds imprinted on God's Blood as their bodies had failed them. With a word, he sent them all flying over the heads of the villagers and into the Bluke horde. They shrieked and circled around the heads of the attackers, dazzling them with unexpected light. The Blukes tried to strike them down, but they were too fast. The blades usually whistled through empty air. Even when a Bluke managed to connect with a spirit, the weapon passed right through it, striking nothing but light.

Many of the Blukes were stalled by this unexpected attack, but not for long. They soon figured out that the beaks and claws of these attackers only caused minor scratches, and that the light and sound could be ignored. The horde moved on, picking their way through the broken ground, advancing with calm discipline despite the hail of arrows and the pestering spirits.

With equal discipline, the human defenders backed up. There was now a patch of unbroken ground in front of them. The lead Bluke skirmishers howled with glee as they cleared the broken ground. They believed that they had finally passed all of the defensive tricks and had the humans on the run. The vanguard of the force waited, grinning, as more Blukes caught up with them. Then, when about a third of their force had cleared the broken ground, they charged.

It took all of the willpower of the townsfolk and their leaders to hold steady before that charge. But not one person moved. When the lead Blukes were only ten feet away from the defender, Yoder uttered an ancient Selurian word.

The opposing vacuum runes on the walls of the blacksmith's and cooper's shops glowed brightly. The Bluke skirmishers realized that they had blundered into a magical trap. The line was caught right between the two opposing vacuum runes. There was a great rush of wind as all of the air was sucked out of the area. All of the Blukes started bleeding from their eyes and noses. Some Blukes were exhaling when the vacuum hit. They were the lucky ones. They simply collapsed to the ground in a light-headed faint as the air left their lungs. The Blukes that tried to hold their breath suffered from horrible internal injuries as their lungs swelled and burst. The Blukes in the rear, carried along by their own momentum, blundered into their choking and collapsing comrades. The charge degenerated into a confused mass.

The vacuum magic faded, and air rushed back into the area. Then, led by simultaneous commands from Andrew and Kantz, the humans attacked. They fell upon the falling and gasping Blukes with their knives and axes. In those first confused seconds, dozens and dozens of Blukes fell without taking a single human casualty.

After that, the fight evened out a little. Many Blukes recovered from the air loss and regained their wits and speed, and the unharmed back ranked moved up to the battle line. But the humans were still boosted by Kantz's magic, and they fought with strengthened bodies and a supreme clarity of mind.

Andrew was proving to be a superb fighter. He had learned much at the military academy. The art of rapier fighting was new, and the Blukes had never seen it before. With a swift lunge-thrust, he could kill an opponent at a distance of eight feet and retreat back before the others could retaliate. The agile and mobile swashbuckling style suited him perfectly.

Yoder's hawk spirits were still flying around the heads of the Blukes, but they were mostly unheeded now. Yoder grinned, and uttered several thunderous words in classical Selurian. The fifteen spirits burst into flame, their calm white radiance giving way to flickering red light. Now, they did more than dazzle the Blukes. Their pecking beaks and grasping talons now contained the power of a furnace rather than the grace of moonbeams. Blukes were burned and set on fire at their touch.

Yoder directed them to attack the Blukes on the front lines, so that the village defenders could take advantage of the confusion and pain the hawks caused. Blukes that escaped the burning spirits were cut down by knives and axes.

The Apprentice resolved to make himself useful as well, even though he had no such impressive spell to call upon. The only type of offensive magic he had ever learned was a simple conjuration to fumigate barns and houses to kill the rats and insects inside. He concentrated on this conjuration, altering the spell so as to focus the effect into a smaller area. A cloud of noxious white gas the size of a large tent appeared among the Blukes. It burned the eyes and throats of those caught inside, blinding them and making them cough and choke. This spell was not lethal, but it did take many enemies out of the fight.

In addition to being harassed by magic, the Blukes were assailed by a small but steady stream of arrows from the top of the granary. Linebarger also added his missiles to the fray. He threw a seemingly endless stream of the small foreign blades at the Bluke fighters. None of them actually killed anyone, but they were painful and distracting and gave the defenders another edge. After about a minute of battle, there were more humans than Blukes fighting on the field.

Behind the human defenders, Erin Lopez was still manhandling people back to The Granary. With her right hand, she was twisting Dellinger's left arm behind his back and shoving him in the right direction. Under her left arm she held another bawling toddler who had run in a random direction after being separated from her mother.

She reached the large stone building, and the door was opened before her. With an unkind shove, she sent Dellinger sprawling inside. She handed the baby girl to a random housewife with more care before turning around.

One of the old men grabbed Erin by the upper arm. She shook his hand loose with a twist of her arm that nearly snapped his wrist, but then she stopped and turned around to listen to him as he said, "You must not go. We are about to bar the gate."

"But there are still more children out there." She paused for half a second. "Bar the gate. Drop a rope for me when I return. I can climb."

"But..."

"Do as I say!"

"Your father..."

"Taught me to take care of other people." With that, Erin turned around and started to run off. The door was closed behind her, and she could hear several solid wooden beams being dropped into place. She saw Jimmy Shuford huddled between a wall and a pile of firewood, and she ran toward him.

Mei Lopez saw her daughter run back into the town. From her vantage point atop the granary, she also saw something that her daughter could not. Some of the Bluke skirmishers had not committed themselves to the main attack. There was a reserve force, and these Blukes were stealthily climbing over buildings and creeping through alleyways. They obviously intended to get behind the line of humans. Erin was right in their way.

It would do no good to shout a warning Erin; she could not possibly hear a yell at this distance over the sounds of battle. Mei knew that the only thing to do was to shoot as many of the skirmishers as possible. She looked at the Elit. They were still firing over the heads of the villagers into the main force of Blukes.

"Look towards the sides!" Mei ordered. "They are coming over the buildings. We cannot let our people get flanked. Take down the newcomers!"

The Elit shifted focus and looked around, and soon they all saw the new threat. They began to aim their arrows at the Blukes that threatened to surround the villagers. But these Blukes were much harder to hit than the ones in the road. They were hidden among the buildings, and they were moving faster. Still, one or two of them were hit.

Mei rammed a new clip of bolts into her crossbow and pulled back the lever. The string of the weapon was pulled back and a bolt dropped into place on the stock. The repeating crossbow was a product of her homeland, and its like had not been made anywhere in eastern lands. This had more to do with culture than skill. There were craftsmen in Noks who could duplicate the clever mechanisms that fed the arrows and cocked the bowstring. There were Council wizards who could duplicate the magical forces that pulled the bowstring back and the clever spells that enchanted every arrow that left the bow. But the idea of pouring so much skill and time into an un-chivalrous long-range weapon was foreign to the local aristocracy.

Mei was more practical. With this weapon, she could fire a bolt every two seconds, without using any strength. She was not as accurate as an Elit, but she did not have to be. She could fire five missiles in the time it took them to launch one.

Mei fired at a Bluke who was crawling over the Lail house. The shot went wide, burying itself in the thatched roof a foot past the Bluke's head. The second shot was much closer, falling a few inches short of the torso. The third one hit the Bluke in the left kidney, and she collapsed with a horrible howl.

Erin noticed the change in the path of the arrows, and she heard a scream as one of the climbing Blukes was hit. She still could not see any of them, but she guessed the truth. She resolved to grab Jimmy Shuford and get back to the granary before she was caught in a melee. Then she could join her mother on the roof and add the arrows of her hunting bow to the archery support.

But Erin was not fast enough. When she was about five feet away from Jimmy, a Bluke swung off the roof at her. The young, tall, lean, brown-faced skirmisher was armed with a hefty axe, which she held easily in her left hand. She was swinging from the roof with her right hand, swooping down silently with the intent of taking Erin's head off.

But Erin saw her in time. She leapt backwards to avoid the blow. The axe swooshed through the air and embedded itself into the wall. The Bluke was nearly thrown off balance by her failed lunge, and she instinctively grabbed the axe to steady herself. This caused the wooden planks of the wall to crack, and the axe and the Bluke fell to the ground.

Erin should have acted then, but she was distracted by an overwhelming sensation of chaos and loss. She looked around and saw that the attackers had executed a perfectly timed strike with their reinforcements. The flanking skirmishers had come over the houses at the same time that the beasts and Brutes had crashed into the human battle line.

The huge mountain humanoids charged with such force that they shattered both lines of fighters. They threw Bluke and human aside with equal contempt. Erin felt ill with despair as she realized the predicament her people were in. In a confused melee, they were no match for the raw strength and energy of the huge attackers. A steady and well-organized line of fighters could have held them off, but the skirmishers behind the human line prevented any such reorganization. The battle had degenerated into a brawl that the Blukes and mountain-folk were sure to win.

Erin heard a sickening crunch behind her. Half a second later, something large and floppy slammed into her back. It tangled her up and drove her to the ground. Erin was almost sick when she realized that it was the body of Linebarger. A Brute's club had caught him across the torso, crushing his lungs.

The Brute had moved on in its flailing rampage, but the thin axe-wielding Bluke huntress was still focused on Erin. The attacker had gotten up, and was striding toward Erin with her weapon held in both hands. She moved more carefully now, having learned that her prey was slippery. There would be no dodging this blow. Erin looked around for something, anything to ward off the blow.

Erin grabbed Linebarger's cane, almost without thinking about it. It felt solid and reassuring. The axe was coming down. Erin brought the cane up to meet it, holding it at an angle in a two-handed grip. Maybe, just maybe, she could deflect the axe's momentum to the side.

The axe met the cane. There was a brief gust of chill air and a sound like thin ice cracking. The axe blade shattered, and fragments of it flew into the face of the Bluke. The warrior staggered back and howled in surprise, pain, and confusion.

Erin was no less surprised, but she did not stop to think. She threw the Litling off of her, and then, in one swift motion, rose to her feet, drew her knife, and drove it straight into the throat of the Bluke.

Erin was a little surprised by her lack of emotion. She had just erased a sentient life with hardly a thought, and she felt no desire to think about it after the fact. Her heart was cold and clear as she quickly surveyed her surroundings for other possible threats.

A dozen small battles were raging near where Erin was standing. But off in the distance, she saw and felt the fierce battle between her father and the Gator-Mage. They were still dueling, and were still evenly matched. Erin began to rush over to help her father.

But before she got very far, she saw something that stopped her. It was a Bluke with a great boar-spear. He was not fighting with the rest of his tribe. He was standing over Jimmy Shuford, who was curled up in a ball and crying. The Bluke lifted the spear with a grin, intending to drive it into the little boy.

Magic and Snow

For the first time in her life, Erin hated something. To be sure, she had thrown tantrums as an infant and had sometimes been petulant as a child. But never before had emotion and logic combined to produce a fierce cold desire to remove something from existence.

The eyes of Linebarger's dragon cane, still in Erin's left hand, began to glow blue, like a deep cave in arctic ice.

Erin's eyes began to glow blue, like a deep cave in arctic ice.

Erin held out her left hand, and a great icy blast issued from the mouth of the dragon. It was the fury of a winter blizzard, compressed into a cylinder the size of a firewood log. It hit the Bluke just as he was moving his arm down. The soldier was lifted off his feet and tossed several feet to the side.

As the Bluke flew through the air, lines of frost swiftly traversed his flailing form, leaving still ice in their wake. When the stiff soldier hit the ground, he shattered, and shards of ice that were once flesh bounced and tinkled across the ground.

Erin felt like she was lifted away from the world, not up, but in a new, previously unknown, direction. She felt a strange twisting and floating sensation as she fell inside herself.

At the same time, she was consumed with a mad rush of energy, the same mad rush that filled her when she woke to a bright sunny morning after being kept inside by a week-long blizzard. She leapt out of bed and flung open the shutters of her window. A wonderful blast of winter air hit her in the face, making her feel more alive than she had ever felt before.

Erin laughed out loud, basking in the wonder of the cold winter morning. She decided that she must go outside, must stretch her legs and run. She nimbly leapt onto the windowsill, and then, barefoot and wearing only her nightshirt, went out into the snow.

Mei looked down from the roof of the Granary in horror. A cyclone of snow had formed around Erin. lifting her off the ground. Mei looked around in vain for the shaman that was doing this to her daughter.

The fresh drifts of small light flakes stung Erin up to her shins as her feet displaced the snow. A shivering thrill flew up Erin's body, filling her with even more energy. She began to run, her feet sliding nimbly through the snow. Everything was so beautiful! The pasture and trees in the yard of the Manor house had never looked more grand.

But there was a problem, a corruption. Someone had made lots of ugly little snowmen and left them scattered around her yard. This would not do. The beauty of her home could not be marred by an ugly little prank. With a deft step, she kicked one of the little snowmen, scattering it across the yard in a puff of loose snow.

Mei saw a snow-filled gust of icy wind whip out of the cyclone and slam into a Brute. It knocked the thing over, lifting it up and twirling it in the air. As it was surrounded by the eldritch wind, it froze solid it solid in less than a second. When it hit the ground, it shattered into thousands of pieces. The cyclone whirled toward the main enemy force, somehow avoiding all of the humans.

Erin daintily danced through her winter wonderland toward another patch of the ugly snowmen. Once she was in the middle of them, she whirled around, kicking them down, swatting them away with her hands, and grabbing chunks out of them to form snowballs that she threw at others.

Brutes, magical beasts, and Blukes fell in numbers now, all of them cut down by an icy magic force that they could not predict or defend against. Their deaths were sudden and horrifying. Icicles would whirl out of the cyclone and impale them. Blasts of freezing wind would turn them into ice, and then the ice would explode, cutting down others with jagged shards that had been living flesh not seconds before.

The ones who were not killed either panicked and ran or wisely decided to run. They fled the village of eldritch horror that had cut down so many of their friends. A few battle-mad fighters remained, and they were cut down in seconds.

Aaron felt a great disturbance in the flow of magic. It was in the village and inside his heart at the same time. But he could not lose focus, could not think of anything other than the now moment and the great power he still fought.

But the Gator-Mage was even more disturbed. He looked toward the source of the magic power that Aaron felt, and Aaron saw fear in his opponent's face for the first time that night. The southern magician stepped backwards, waved his clubs, and was soon surrounded by an inky black fog. Aaron, fearing a trick, summoned a burst of holy light to blaze away the fog. But when the blackness vanished, there was nothing there. The Gator-Mage was gone, and Aaron could not sense any trace of his opponent. There was nothing there but a small charge on the ground that marked a sky-leap spell.

Erin could no longer feel her feet, but she did not care. She was outside in the most glorious winter morning she had ever seen. Anything was better than being cooped up in the small, solid, dark house that she knew by heart. She wanted, she needed to explore this great new world. She turned toward the woods, preparing to go into the deep snowy forest.

The shutters of another room of her house were flung open, and the face of Aaron Lopez appeared in the window. He was yelling at Erin to get back inside, to stop being a fool and to come back to the warmth.

Erin paused. Perhaps she should heed his advice. The first thrill of power was almost gone now, and her energy was beginning to fade away. But no. She was outside now, and that was all that mattered. She was free, free to roam and explore the wonderful new world.

Erin turned toward the woods again, but slowly. She felt a little light-headed now, and moved with less grace and speed than before.

Her father appeared in the door of the house. He was bundled from head to toe in multiple layers of furs and thick cloth. His thick boots made a harsh sound as they crunched the snow beneath them. Only his eyes were visible among the mass of warm clothing, and they were grim and purposeful.

"No, that is wrong." thought Erin. "You should not shut yourself away from this wonderful world. You should revel in it, and let it thrill your skin and fill you with energy. Bundling up like that is hardly better than being inside."

Erin moved to run away from her father, but for some reason one foot would not move in front of the other. She collapsed into the snow, and for the first time felt it as a cold and awful thing. Rather than give her energy, it was now sucking all life from her, wrapping her in a cold embrace.

She closed her eyes, lacking the energy to keep them open. She felt the strong gentle arms of her father lift her out of the snow, and she heard his boots crunching the snow as he carried her back inside.