COF 3: The Fallen Dynasty

14 | Massacre (I)

Viktir grunted, bracing his arm as he went down. Red flashed as Elred's shards burst forward. That should keep him down. Nadia's voice thundered over the clouds, calling spell after spell available for half-bloods. Elred scampered out of the way as the ground erupted and threw up a shield as explosions racked the sky. Dust stirred and the sound of Diran's longsword unsheathing rang through the haze.

Elred's boots skidded against the upturned dirt, the absence of glass beneath her soles biting against her footing. She snarled and raised another glass shield as Pikard lunged with his fists clenched. Nadia's spells clashed against the shield from above. Elred blocked Pikard, kicking him into Diran's way as the painter ran to slash with his sword. Both men stumbled back, Diran poking Pikard's shoulder with his blade.

Elred drowned them in shards. Stay down while she dealt with Nadia. Elred called off the shield and Nadia came crashing straight through, a spell blazing red at the half-blood's hands. Their screams bled in the scratchy air. Elred raised glass spikes and Nadia let the spell fly.

A loud explosion. Spikes scattered in infinite directions. The dust erupted in a messy cloud. Pain crashed through Elred's shoulder as the spell nicked her. She gritted her teeth as stars danced in her vision. Her knees buckled.

The dust cleared to reveal Nadia pinned to the ground, a glass spike jutting out of her arm, still bright red with the mage's blood. Elred grinned at the sight and at how Nadia spat curses as she tried dislodging her arm. A scream tore off the half-blood's lips when Elred withdrew the glass spike, leaving shards embedded in flesh.

Viktir stirred. Diran and Pikard groaned and began picking themselves up. Quickly. Elred needed to finish this quickly. She brought a dwarven metal dagger out. She blew a breath. A clean strike by the throat, that should do it.

"You coward," Nadia staggered, clutching her bleeding arm. Where was her whole magician cohort? Did the Glass Mountain's magic get rid of them? "Go ahead and kill me," Nadia bared her teeth. "Can you?"

Elred's grip tightened around the dagger's hilt. She could do it. Just one slash and all would be over. She stepped back. Hesitation. A soldier's enemy. From a few distances away, Nadia grinned. "I thought so."

A spell flew out of Nadia's mouth as she lunged. "Diran! Pikard! Get your asses off the floor and help me here!" Nadia screamed as Elred brought up another shield that the half-blood shattered with a well-timed smack of a dagger.

Elred ducked as Nadia's blade swept over her head. That would have nicked her head off her neck. Elred's arm shot up and grabbed Nadia's outstretched arm. A sickening crack rang as Elred flipped the woman over to the ground. The dagger skittered away until it reached Viktir's feet. Nadia barked out a spell that turned the air thicker than blood. Elred stumbled away, clawing at her throat.

Viktir lunged, burying the dagger into Elred's shoulder. Elred cursed. Where did he come from? Her palm struck Viktir's ear. The man, no matter his size and difference in weight, stumbled back. Elred lashed out with her knee to his stomach and a punch to his nose. She splayed her fingers and glass spikes grew from the ground and impaled his arms. Stay down.

Diran's blade glinted silver in the midday sun. Elred sidestepped and swept with her wounded arm and blocked the longsword with her dagger. Metal grated against each other as Diran pushed her back. Elred snarled. Hands closed around her ankles. She looked down to see Pikard stomach-first on the ground. Had he crawled here with his busted leg?

"Nadia!" Pikard screamed. "Get over here!"

The bald woman lunged. Elred screamed and summoned her magic. With a cry, she drew them all back with shards that would hurt their flesh but wouldn't kill them. Elred summoned a glass sword just in time to parry Nadia's spell before it hit her. Thick red flowed in rivers against crystals. Elred leaped back and summoned her wings. She tucked the dagger to a sheath by her thigh. Her dress was filthy and torn in uncomfortable places. She glanced up at the gray sky. She needed to finish this faster.

One general at a time.

She launched herself up. The wind bit at her cheeks and ruffled her long hair. She really needed to lop it all off. Someday.

Three spells shot from the ground. Elred tilted a second too late and one slammed into her. Air was punched out of her chest as her vision darkened. She clenched her jaw against the pain and flapped her wings. Stay up.

"Elred, you let me down," Nadia jeered somewhere from behind the clouds. "I always looked up to you as a woman who could take on anything. Yet here you are, taking us one on one because you're too weak."

Elred didn't reply. Instead, she matched Nadia's tactic and wove a camouflage around her. She peered deeper into the trail dimension, keeping track of the trails that swirled and disappeared. Elred grinned. If it's a shard fairy casting glamour, she would have had a hard time tracking. The trick in finding a hidden fairy was to look for a trail blinking in different colors. That's supposed to throw off the onlookers. With half-bloods, though, it was different. The colors were brighter and the flickering patterns were faster, as if the magic interlaced with the trails was working harder to shield their trail.

There. Up in the sky.

Elred drew the dagger, summoned a glass sword in her other arm and chanted a rysteme spell. She moved her wings once, twice, then flapped it hard, launching her into the direction of the kaleidoscopic trails.

She slashed her sword, hit solid flesh. A hiss rang in the air. Elred unleashed her rysteme spell and threads of lightning chained Nadia's form, charging up the clouds. Soon, it was going to rain. The half-blood's cloaking spell shattered like fabric tearing. Elred drove the dagger into Nadia's neck. She hissed at Nadia's ear as the half-blood's eyes flashed with fear. "Lesson twelve—isolate the hardest target and deal with him quickly," Elred grinned. "I believe I taught you that."

Nadia's head lolled back. Elred released her spell and threw the body away from her.

The men froze when Elred slammed into the dirt, Nadia's body not long after. The impact broke the corpse's neck in an audible crack. Elred stood up, extracted the dagger from the corpse and faced her remaining generals. She didn't care if they were once her men and her closest friends. The first rule of survival was to hurt people who hurt you first. Elred had no plans to stop surviving.

She grinned, a glass sword assembling itself on her grip. Her anger bubbled under her skin. She glazed her eyes over Diran, Pikard, and Viktir. "Who's next?"