Foxfire (The Blood Oath) old version

Chapter 18: Weapons of Damnation

       

       Drake answered the assassin with a wide swing of his conjured Ice-sword. She parried with spring-steel quickness and shoved him backwards. The young girl found his strength an exciting challenge. She pushed herself backwards with a jump, moving through the air with great control, her eyes set upon him. Her feet landed softly on the hand rail and she balanced herself on the long narrow pole with little difficulty.

She stroked her blade downwards, beads of blood rolling down its edge.

"By Vvenom, what are you?"

Drake did not answer. He sprang forward, ice-bounded sword in his ready grip.

"Nightsisters have never been known to turn away from duty, and by the Eight, I shall not start today my young prince."

Both her long thin blades were a twin reflection of each other. She joined them end to end and attached their hilts to make the swords become a double edged spear. Zelos began to swirl her sword in endless circles. The fires from the burning hall came towards her as if pushed by a mysterious wind. She stood amidst the flames, like a butcher's venison attracting a swarm of flies.

The fires surrounded Zelos. It looked like a wall of flames around her, so hot that it would burn anything a few inches near, yet it caused her no harm.

Drake knew the powers of Immolation when he saw one. The Scholars of conjuration had made sure they knew all the abilities indigenous to their relative talent of Evocation. The flame cloak on his opponent he had not expected.

He moved a good distance away from her.

Zelos sprang from the rail and raised her sword in the air. Fire followed. Drake crouched and shielded his face with his hand. He had done it in reflex, but a ward of transparent light spread like a canopy over his body. The fire lashed upon it in terrible rage. Seconds passed and he was still alive. The bright ward of Protection still lingered. It had absorbed every flame until the fires were smothered.

Drake stood up, astonished.

He had never learned the skill of Protection, nor was he bonded to its magic or possessed its sigil. Light Wards were only possessed by Protectors but somehow he had conjured one. He could feel the power of Light, a pure tempest of foxfire, raging inside him.

The assassin stopped her attacks. Her face held a curiosity which Drake had once felt before.

"You and I," she said with a hint of realization, "we are both weapons of damnation."

"You are right," Drake leaped in the air.

He was flying and falling at the same time. The skill of Levitation was a new discovery and he suffered the fate of all neophytes.

His feet landed crudely into a half broken shelve. It was a hard fight to keep his balance, but his success was entirely on the fact that the assassin does not notice his amateurism. His crystal blade disintegrated into a vapour that reshaped and took the form of a crystal bow, a transformation he had not expected. The runes on his palm were burning fast, switching from sigil to sigil; Conjuration to Destruction to Protection to Alteration.

He pulled the string of his bow and a misty white arrow took shape from nothing. Drake unleashed it upon the assassin, and another arrow took the place of the one that had left. She countered by swirling her spear so fast that each arrow was rebounded and fell off to the floor or got stuck in the ceiling, dissipating back to mist.

She lunged herself towards Drake, using a stroke of her spear to strike the bow and it scattered into tiny flakes of ash. The assassin moved too fast. With a full somersault she returned herself to a stance of combat, facing her opponent again.