The Forsaken Hero

I lowered my staff, letting the Memory Projection vanish in a puff of golden sparks. As anxious as I was to craft a teleportation spell without a visible reference, I couldn’t spare the mana to sustain it any longer. As it was, I had enough for one solid try, and with the mana I saved, maybe, maybe a second.

A heavy hum filled the air. Over my shoulder, I could see the skyship in great detail. It was close enough that I could make out the individual silhouettes of the sailors and soldiers, and Wizlen’s tall, commanding figure at the prow. The star on my staff bobbed up and down as my hands trembled, so I tightened my grip, taking a long, deep breath. It didn’t do any good at calming my nerves, but it gave me time to prepare myself for what came ahead.

Slowly, with as delicate a touch as I could muster, I began to weave a spell. A golden glow rose across the mountain peak as I suffused mana into the runes I’d outlined with threads before, matching the lightening grays on the horizon. My heart thundered in my chest, but I refrained from glancing over my shoulder at the ship. If they saw, they saw. Looking now would only stress me out further and increase the risks of messing up.

The runes formed one after another, and soon, I laid the first circle. It formed a golden ring around me, a near identical copy of the one Gayron had created with his ring. This one circle was the main visible component of the spell, serving as the anchor to stabilize the spatial rift that the rest of the spell would form.

After it was complete, I took a few precious seconds to look it over, ensuring nothing was out of place. It was the easiest to cast and the part I had most confidence in, for there were very few unique considerations in this part. The second circle was where the true challenge began.

Over the next few minutes, I hurriedly assembled one circle after another, the runes appearing by the hundreds. The drone of the ship grew steadily louder, and soon, I could hear voices floating on the wind. As I laid the foundation of the sixth, a sudden shout rang out, and my heart dropped. I was a secret no longer.

A burst of adrenaline caused my body to shiver, fear coursing through my veins. Auras rose across the mountain range, causing my delicate magic circle to waver. I tightened my grip on my mana, accelerating the spell as quickly as I dared. The runes became hasty and jumbled, but I gritted my teeth, ignoring them and pressing on. It didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to work.

As the final rune snapped into place, I sagged with a ragged breath, finally turning to face the approaching ship. The two mana cannons hummed, steadily gaining brightness as their barrels were brought to bear against me. A dozen armored knights, bearing massive shields taller than I was, lined the railing, sheltering leather-clad archers behind them. A tall, intimidating figure stood at the front, one foot resting on the base of the long spar jutting from the prow. His sword was bared, held in one hand, the point driven into the deck.

Our eyes met across the distance between us, and a shiver ran down my back. Wizlen, an eighth-level warrior. Perhaps, were it a mage, I would be able to contest him. But there was nothing I could do against that sword.

Wizlen raised his hand, shouting an order that reached my ears as a string of muffled, unintelligible words. The ship changed course, cutting through the air toward me at an angle, bringing them in for a broadside with their unattributed mana cannon.

I took a few unsteady steps backward, glancing back at my spell. It spun slowly, the circles rotating at different speeds. I frowned. That wasn’t good.

A small boom struck me with the force of a stern breeze. I whirled, gasping as my ears rang, a beam of light streaking toward me from the mouth of the mana cannon. We were a mile distant, but the line of light crossed it in the blink of an eye, smashing into the cliffs beneath me. The mountain rolled beneath my feet. Energy washed over the top of the cliff in a wave of white light. Adaptive Resistance formed a wall, preventing the light from killing me, but the sheer force of the explosion tossed me back like a ragdoll.

Everything went black as I collided with the rugged face of the rocky peak. Several sharp knives sliced across my back, and a horrid crunch set my tail on fire. I dropped from the rock, falling a few feet to my knees, fighting back unconsciousness. Black dots spun across my vision, and my lungs burned, heaving for a breath of air that refused to come. Blood trickled from the corner of my lips, and my back was hot and wet, long streams running down my legs. My dress hung loosely about my shoulders, nearly torn from my back by the sharp rocks of the cliff.

I forced my eyes open, whimpering as air finally made it down my throat. The blinding explosion had given way to darkness, the air smothered by dust and ash. I crawled forward, scraping my hands on the rough stone, but desperation pushed me forward. The circle. What happened to the circle? Why couldn’t I feel it anymore?

”No, no no!” I whispered, tears flooding my vision. It was gone!

It barely felt real. This had to be a dream. Another vision. Maybe everything was, and I hadn’t actually woken up yet. Maybe Gayron was still there, and the moment I opened my eyes, he’d take me away from this accursed peak.

But no matter how many times I blinked, it didn’t change. The skies were clouded by dust, but I could feel the vibrations of the ship in the air nearby and the powerful souls aboard. They halved the distance, and once the dust cleared, they’d be in proper range. The next shot wouldn’t miss.

I staggered to my feet, summoning my staff back to my hand from wherever it had been blown. My back screamed in protest at the movement, the muscles quivering, feeling as though they were being ripped from my bones. Even worse was the searing fire emanating from my tail. Even without looking, I knew it was broken, and badly. Worse than at Tormod’s Breach.

Gritting my teeth, I began to cast again, forcing the runes through the pain. With some surprise, I found myself with more mana than when I started, and diverted some of it into a healing spell. The flow of blood down my legs slowed, the agony in my tail dulling to a level that didn’t threaten my consciousness. The rest I threw into wards, praying they would buy me enough of a chance.

My first attempt was nothing but flaws and inefficiencies, mistakes I was able to correct the second time around. It streamlined the process, balancing out against the distracting pain so that I proceeded at roughly the same pace. It couldn’t have been any better, and yet I couldn’t help but wonder if my mana would hold.

A sixth-circle fireball caught the edge of the peak, sending gouts of flames across the mountain. An arrow slammed into me from above and shattered, leaving a small black crack in my ward. Several more pinged the ground nearby, creating small plumes of dirt and fragmented stone. The energy from the attacks seeped into wards, but it was barely enough for me to start the next circle.

As my mana faded to a trickle, I finally looked at the skyship. It hovered a hundred feet from the mountain peak, presenting its entire starboard side at me. The mana cannon glowed fiercely, just seconds away from firing a second round. More arrows and spells colluded with my wards, but it was the eighth-level warrior I fixed my eyes on. He kept his place at the prow, eyes scanning the mountains around us.

I squinted, scrutinizing him closely, but in the end, just shook my head. It didn’t really matter what he was doing so long as he let me continue casting.

”Fire!” a tall, scrawny mage shouted.

I closed my eyes, bracing myself as the cannon released a thunderous roar. At this range, there was no difference in time from when it fired to when it struck. The entire world filled with light, the mountain bucking beneath my feet. Adaptive Resistance flared, absorbing the mana of the beam, but the sheer force and shockwave shattered my wards. Cracks spiderwebbed across the golden sphere like a broken window pane, eroding the formation until almost nothing remained.

When the beam died away, the entire mountainside had crumbled away, leaving me standing on a small, narrow pillar some twenty feet from the top. I collapsed to my knees, panting heavily, sweat and blood stinging my eyes. I kept the spell going, using the new mana I’d gained from the blast, but a pit opened in my stomach. It wasn’t going to be enough. Even another blast, another two, wouldn’t give me what I needed to finish. Not if I had to rebuild my wards to survive. I had failed.