Wylde Magic | Book 3

Fifty Seven: A Battle of Magics

Horns sounded in the marshland. A cry to battle that didn't sound like something Bara Khalja used, but I couldn't count on it being friendly either.

They rang clearly over the land in an echo, driving their haunting cries across the empty air without giving away their origin. But even if I wanted to find where they came from and who sounded them, I couldn't take my eyes off of the horrid army in front of us.

Bara Khalja was looking very relaxed for someone who had been crawling through the marshes for hours. His black robes, bone decorations, and white face paints were neatly in place as he flashed a cruel grin my way. His bone-white staff raised high in triumphant vigor as his monstrosities continued to crawl forward from the background.

How had he sensed us all the way up in the sky? And that he could pull me from Spaulder's back, it was frightening power. The reach was so far for any magic I had experience with. The practical magics of the witches would need much more preparation for the kind of power he displayed, and the instinctual elements of the fae...even Thain's wind couldn't push and pull into the skies from so far and he was one of the most powerful fae I've met.

Schula hugged me tight for a heartbeat, then pushed me behind her as she threw her arms out front. Ice welled underfoot, the soggy ground that offered us a brief reprieve from the marsh waters now rose as ice slicked the footing before us. It stretched almost completely to Bara Khalja's feet, and he grinned as he brought the butt of his staff down onto the solid ground.

Shattered pieces of ice crackled and spat in deep crevasses, the ground under us now shifting and cracking.

Spaulder roared, flapping his great wings and throwing gusts of wind to knock back the risen dead. The waters of the marsh rippled and sloshed. Mud flew over the enemy as Spaulder increased his wingbeats furiously.

My eyes drifted down until I saw the now uncovered horrors beneath the marsh. Whatever battle had occurred here, the remnants of it were still everywhere. Bones, skin, tattered cloth and armor. Somehow the culture of this place had mummified it all. Blackened and stretched tight, skin was still pulled over bony frames. Severed limbs fared worse than unbroken skin, but I took a step back in horror at the sight of the unsettled death beneath us.

Spaulder stopped his wingbeats, roaring as he pushed himself off the ground and into the air. Flying low, he let out a furious barrage of fire on the walking horrors. In the absence of his beating wings, all the water he had pushed away now flooded back to us.

Schula kept us steady on our feet despite what Bara Khalja did to her ice. Her face twisted in rage as she threw her hands forward again, this time causing her ice to crawl up the staff that Bara Khalja so foolishly left touching the icy waters.

"Foolish thing," Bara Khalja snarled. "You cannot stop me from what is mine to summon!" 

He pushed one hand toward us, sending that power that had grabbed me from the skies and used it to shove us off our feet. I went flying back, landing in the water somewhere away from Schula as I landed on something hard and thin but with a squishy layer wrapped over it. Too afraid to look down, I scrambled to my feet and pulled at the reeds around me to pull myself onto a grassy knoll.

Bara Khalja had freed his staff, now raising it to the sky as he looked to his feet.

"He's casting some kind of spell!" I shouted.

Schula was still pulling herself out of the waters where she fell, her eyes blazing with hate as she clawed her way onto solid ground.

The pressure of magic building in the air felt wrong. It left the taste of death in my mouth, and I recoiled at the sensation.

"Wren?" Schula scrambled my way. "Wren, what's wrong?"

Bile rose in my throat and it took all my willpower to not throw up.

"Spell," was all I could spit out for Schula to hear.

She twisted to face Bara Khalja, who was still chanting something too soft for us to hear. Schula pushed forward to close the distance, trying in desperation to get her ice magic to reach the warlock.

Bara Khalja saw her attack coming, and with one hand he waved it away while still chanting under his raised staff.

I swallowed back my nausea and clamored forward, throwing fire toward him instead. It fizzled out before it could even reach him as my stomach retched. 

"Spaulder!" Schula called, but our beloved dragon was buys raining down flames over the risen dead behind Bara Khalja. His fury was evident in his wrathful rampage.

My eyes barely flicked back to Bara Khalja in time to see him slam his staff down to the ground, sinking it deep in the mud as he finished his spell. The sudden lack of the perverse magic in the air was a brief wash of relief for my stomach until I realized he must have accomplished what he wanted with it.

His face was taut and beaded with sweat, but still he looked pleased which couldn't be good.

I closed my eyes, reaching out to sense what he may have done. I felt it right away. Beneath us. Something in the mud, and it was...moving.

I lurched to my feet, racing to Schula so we could weather whatever was about to come side by side. I clung to her arm desperately, pulling us to our feet on relatively dry grass just as the ground began to shake.

Just like the valley that he opened to swallow the Autumn court army whole, the ground began to open. Long closed rifts of root and mud pulled apart. Water rushed in and out of crevices.

I held Schula tight, even as we were knocked down. We weren't the only ones as many of Bara Khalja's risen dead were also shoved to the side in the wake of whatever was rising upward.

"What battle happened here?" I shouted to Schula despite being next to each other. The chaos and noise of the breaking earth roared around us.

"I don't know!" Schula cried out. "I know something happened, but it was millennia ago. Even Thain wasn't born yet!"

The earth swelled to a breaking point. Schula and I tumbled down the mountain that was now forming in the middle of the marsh. Big, so big. It lifted itself from the mud and water like a horrid storm of mud that would burst at any moment, and something was in it. Something dark and filled with death and hate. Bara Khalja had raised a monster again, but unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Spaulder landed near us, coming down from the skies to spread his wings protectively at our backs. It was comforting to have my triquetram together, even if the only thing we could do right now was hold onto each other.

The mountainous earth that had surfaced, covered in mud and grasses, began to shake violently. It tore apart, large white lines emerging from its depths.

"Hear me as I call your true name!" Bara Khalja now called. He managed to stay upright, holding his staff high in the air. "Vivmara, arise and follow me!"

The white parts that had been buried in the mud mountain now shook, flinging the mud away and forming a shape my mind couldn't wrap around at first.

Long neck, protruding from the earth as the muck fell away from it. Horned head, mouth of teeth, eyes empty and rotted. Its hide may have been some kind of white or gray, it would be hard to tell after its long slumber under the marshes. The size of it was enormous, but even more worrisome was the gigantic wings that suddenly flung free of the mud. Webbed membrane over a bony structure. Finally, it pulled a long tail from the crumbled mountain and shook free much of the remaining grime. It lifted its head in a silent scream, directing itself to Bara Khalja.

Of all the horrors in the Wyldes, of everything he could have sensed and uncovered with his wicked magics.

Bara Khalja had raised a dragon.