Читать книгу Wandfasted - Laurie Forest - Страница 14

Chapter 6: Lightning Mage

Vale whips around in a graceful arc and slashes out with his wand.

A forked tongue of blue lighting smashes into the fireballs and sends up a crackling, spitting wall of blue that hurtles toward the Icaral.

Snarling, the demon sends a line of fire out toward the lightning wall, coating the Icaral’s side of it with yellow flames.

Their heels digging into the ground, both Vale and the Icaral furiously push their magic against the wall, which is now a glowing and sparking green. It grows taller than their heads and widens, setting the ground aflame.

“Do you need assistance?” Fain calls to Vale, worry lacing his tone.

“No,” Vale grinds out, pushing the shield forward. “It’s got to be fire. I’ve got him.”

Fain sends up a watery shield-dome over us, its translucent ripples limned with glowing orange light reflected from the torches. He must have a water affinity, whereas Vale’s is clearly fire, like mine.

Though my body is still wracked with burning waves of pain, I can still see the Icaral demon through Fain’s shield, the creature’s eyes flaming white-hot. The demon grins, pushes his palms out and forces the fiery wall toward Vale. The lines of Vale’s lightning fan out in response, and a stray bolt slams into the ground beside us, just past our shield, sending up a smoking hiss.

A Keltic soldier bursts from the forest far to our left, his ax raised. Ignoring us, he runs past the livestock pen toward the distant side of the barn.

Giant icicles, like clear javelins, shoot from behind the barn and slam into the mammoth Kelt, knocking him down, instantly freezing him. Wide-eyed and rigid as stone, he lies immobilized, ice spreading out from his body in a frosty haze.

Another cloaked, black-haired Mage strides into view, his eyes set tight on the frozen Kelt. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, this ice-wielding Mage, descending like a winter storm. Flanking him is the hateful Upper River girl—the young woman who named me a race traitor.

“Over there!” she says. “Another Kelt! A staen’en whore!” She points into the shadows of the livestock pen, where a small, dark ball huddles between the feeding trough and the water pail.

Daisie!

“Please,” I hear Daisie plead as the Mage’s eyes fix tightly on her.

Without even a flicker of pity, the Mage raises his wand and sends an ice javelin straight into Daisie’s chest with a sickening thump.

My body trembles with shock and horror.

“Gods, Malkyn!” Fury flashes in Fain’s eyes. But the Icaral’s shrieking hiss and Vale’s grunting cry divert his attention back to maintaining our watery shield.

“There’s another one, there!” the girl cries.

I follow the point of her finger, which leads straight to Jules. I look to Fain and our eyes lock. I try to speak, but my lungs are still burning with the magic I gathered, and I’m unable to utter a single word to save my best friend.

Behind Fain, Vale utters a final spell, slamming his ward arm down. The whole shield, both fire and lightning, goes down with it. He gracefully flips his wand back and then straight out, sending a bolt of lightning through the Icaral’s chest.

The demon lets out an unearthly howl, his whole body arcing back into a taut bow. He falls limply to the ground, and Fain’s watery shield follows suit.

Vale runs toward us.

“That Kelt, there! He’s her Kelt,” the girl cries to Malkyn, pointing first at Jules, then at me. Her beautiful green eyes are red with tears, her mouth pulled down and trembling with disgust. She jabs her finger at Jules, her tone venomous. “He goes after our women!”

I struggle to tell them how Jules saved me, how he helped me stay strong enough to protect everyone. But my voice is gone. All I can do is gasp for air.

Vale throws the young woman a knife-sharp look of cold appraisal just as Malkyn flicks his wand toward Jules.

Fast as a cobra, Vale hurls a bolt of lightning that knocks Malkyn’s ice javelin into the rapidly disintegrating barn. The javelin explodes into a shower of ice, then instantly turns to steam.

“What are you doing?” Malkyn’s voice is calm enough, but there’s rage just beneath the surface. I shrivel at the sound of his deep, resonant voice, the image of him murdering gentle Daisie vivid in my mind.

“He’s mine,” Vale states coldly.

“You seem to be forgetting that I outrank you, Vale,” Malkyn states slowly and coolly. I notice Malkyn’s uniform has two silver bars on his chest to Vale’s one.

Vale bares his teeth at Malkyn, his eyes glittering dangerously. “Does your magic outrank mine, Malkyn?”

Malkyn sighs, his expression relaxing to one of bored resignation. He languidly turns away from Vale and then, whip-fast, slices his wand out.

Vale flicks his wrist and catches Malkyn’s javelin with a small strike of lightning, exploding it into a puff of snow that falls harmlessly at Vale’s feet.

“Ah,” Vale says, giving Malkyn a nod of mock encouragement. “You’re improving.” He strides toward Jules, wand out, lips moving. Black vines fly out from the wand to encircle Jules’s upper body. Jules groans in agony as the vines cinch tight.

Vale grabs Jules’s good arm and roughly hoists him up. Jules looks dazed, his eyes barely focused, his face a bloody mess.

“I know this one,” Vale states coldly. “We’ve a score to settle.” Not waiting for a response, Vale drags a shambling, half-conscious Jules off toward the woods.

“Where are you taking him?” Malkyn asks as he inspects his wand, flicking frost off the end it.

Vale doesn’t bother to turn around. “Somewhere no one will witness what I’m about to do.”

Tears roll down my face as I struggle to breathe, to summon enough air to utter a protest. I try to shake loose from Fain’s grip, thrashing my upper body, but Fain holds tight as spears of fiery magic lash against my insides.

Another orange explosion lights up the horizon. Fain, Malkyn and the Upper River girl look toward the mountains.

“I’ll need you for the shield,” Malkyn tells Fain, his voice low and level. He sets his dark gaze on me. Gasping, I still manage to send him a glare of red-hot defiance.

“Go,” Fain says to Malkyn with a flick of his chin toward the barn. “I’ll be right there.”

A scream of agony tears through the air.

Jules!

Malkyn pauses, his face taking on a fleeting look of half-lidded rapture. The Upper River girl fixes me with a hateful look before Malkyn leads her away, the two of them disappearing behind the burning barn.

Images of Jules being tortured flash through my mind, and a shuddering sob overtakes me, my chest heaving, the fire whipping my insides in relentless slashes. I throw my head from side to side, fighting against Fain, fighting to breathe, barely hearing him as he urges me to slow my breaths.

Another explosion sounds, closer this time. My lungs heave, burning, then constrict tight.

I’ve lost the ability to breathe.