FireSweet

A Dagger's Destiny

            We rushed toward the wall.  There was no further attempt at cautious motion, because there were no cautious moves left.  There was no cover between the forest and the wall, leaving us with the sole option of darting forward and wondering how long it would take before the cameras spotted us.  Our goal was to make it all the way up the wall before the crew members reached their battle stations.  Even that was a tall order, as the wall was probably three stories high, enough to kill any one of us if we fell.

            Pausing at the base, Flint and Briamy huddled close to me while I drew Obsidarian’s black dagger.  I closed my eyes, picturing the dagger as an extension of my arm.  Magic pooled beneath the surface of my palm, and I carefully let some flow into the dagger, focusing on keeping the heat within the blade, stopping it from bursting into flames.  I opened my eyes slowly, smiling when I saw the black blade was white hot.  I swung my arm to stab the dagger into the wall, but the dagger bent against the stone, the metal made malleable by the heat.

            I heard a siren from within the camp, and swore as I bent the dagger to its original shape and pulled my magic from it, back into my hand.  Glaring at the stone I had designed to be impenetrable, I let the heat build in my hands, again forcing the magic to remain within my skin.  Flint and Briamy were forced to back away, their faces shining with sweat from the heat my hands were emitting.  I reached forward and touched the wall, my hand turning the stone soft.  I scooped a handful of the black stone out of the wall and tossed it to the side, watching as it scorched the grass it landed on.

            I reached above my first indentation and scooped out a second, beaming at the progress. 

 “Wait a moment for it to cool,” I instructed.  “Then follow me up.”

I set my foot in the first hollow and carved out another niche.  When I moved my second foot up I carved out the fourth indentation, and was completely off the ground, perched in the hollows of my handhold ladder.  My movements were slow, taking too long to scoop out each handhold and toss the molten mass away without hitting my friend and student.  I also managed to warp most of the hollows, seeing as my stabilizing hand was still hot while I tried to scoop out each indentation. 

I was halfway up when the others followed me, gingerly touching the places my hands had been.  The siren had stopped, and I could hear no further activity from within the camp. I vaulted over the top and began climbing down, my legs dangling as I carved out my handholds.  My muscles were shaking when I reached the ground; and that was the first wall.  We still had two to go. 

            Halfway up the second wall, the fog hit.  Not an easy, sort of able to be seen through fog, or the kind that gradually rolls in with the mornings.  This was a wall of mist, rushing toward us the way sandstorms always appear in the movies.  I flinched when it touched me, listening to the hiss of steam rising from my hands as the rest of my body was soaked to the skin. 

            “What was that?” Flint asked from somewhere below me.

            “Fog,” Briamy stated.

            A muffled roar of male voices sounded from far off and to the left.

            “Storm,” I answered.

            “I don’t see any lightning!” he protested.

            “Tempest Storm,” I explained.  “He can create water, and it’s never been foggy here before.”

            The roar sounded again. 

            “He’s attacking,” I finished.  “Let’s keep moving.”