Chapter 2-35

Ootrin raiders didn’t vary their standard tactics much, they didn’t often need to. Two horsemen rode out from the woods at a quick trot, raising their short, powerful bows. As soon as they had loosed arrows at us, they pulled off to either side, letting the two horrmen behind them fire as well. The maneuver was incredibly smooth and well-practiced, resulting in a constant barrage of deadly projectiles.

We knew that this was coming, of course, but knowing about a threat and being prepared for it were two different things. We pressed together, and I drew on the mana of all my vasra, transforming and feeding it to Myta as quickly as I could manage. She, in turn, pushed out her presence into a dome around us, and sparked it alight with living flame.

As formidable as the Ootrin bows were, their arrows were functionally the same as arrows used widely elsewhere. Wooden shafts, with metal tips and feather fletching. Mundane wood, or even steel couldn’t stand up to Myta’s fire, and even most infused feathers would burn away quickly. We were soon pelted by a shower of ashes and misshapen metal slag. The infused arrows that were sent our way lost their momentum without their fletching, buffeted off-course by the wind from the flames.

It was a good defense, but inefficient. Even with our regular practice Myta wouldn’t be able to maintain the aura for a long time. Once she reached the end of her strength, we would all be in trouble. The enemy’s bows were powerful enough to be an inconvenience to us even when firing the mundane arrows. The infused projectiles were a genuine threat, and masked by the less-dangerous chaff.

Beside me, Saoirse was transforming. Her body grew, seeming to expand smoothly, sprouting short, dense fur and wicked claws and teeth. I badly wanted to watch her transformation, but couldn’t spare the concentration. Two other members of Siobhan’s escort were shifters, also trapped in their **** transition state. Meanwhile Hati had already infused her body, and thrown herself down the cliff. We were about sixty feet above the ground now, and her active defense could handle that. Myta was stuck defending those of us who remained.

It seemed to take hours while I felt our mana drain away, debris pattering against my head, but I knew it was less than a minute until the shifters burst out of our fiery shroud. Like Hati, they simply threw themselves down the cliff, landing with feline grace on the grass below. They and Hati charged at the Ootrin cavalry, four against forty, as the rest of us began to make our way down the path again.

The Ootrin didn’t falter, shifting their aim to the foes on the ground with impressive discipline. I hated admiring anything to do with Entreyu’s lackeys, but their skill in combat was undeniable. Unfortunately for them, that was the point at which Jito sprang our trap.

Those among our company who had developed the wood and earth aspects, had spent the night before preparing this ground. They had infused the clearing with their personal mana, priming it for their sorcery. A horn blew, and the ground rippled with shifting earth and roots. The Ootrin horses were caught unprepared, falling, many with injured legs. The Ootrin themselves made flying dismounts, largely unharmed. But their attack formation was completely broken.

Our company dropped from the branches of the surrounding trees, using the moment of confusion to descend in relative safety. Their preparations could never have passed unnoticed without the aid of the druids and elders attending the moot. Sati had been the one to convince them that they had nothing to lose in aiding us, and that aid had made this moment possible. The raiders floundered for a moment, but recovered quickly, trading their bows for curved swords and axes.

The once orderly, almost choreographed battle, transformed into a brutal melee. Myta, and the remaining fighters at my location, threw themselves into a reckless run down the path. My flame had to rely on her speed to join the battle, as her defenses weren’t suited to endure the fall. Sati stayed with me, and we surveyed the field, lending our talents to the battle as a whole.

I shifted mana between our people as they needed it, strengthening those who faced awakened Ootrin fighters. There were an unfortunately large number of them, and we wanted to eliminate them as soon as possible. I could feel a surge of foul mana farther out in the woods. The corrupted shifters that the Pure had enslaved, no doubt.

Hati crashed into the front of the Ootrin like a rock hitting a glass window. She put down raiders who had not yet properly found their feet with blows of bone-shattering ****. She had taken a few hits from infused arrows, but they slowed her down not at all.

Siobhan’s shifters were not far behind her, feeding on the blood-drenched mana in the air. They too took hits from the infused projectiles, but pounced on the enemy with a keen sense for weakness, reaping the unawakened Ootrin with brutal efficiency. It was easy to see why, as the more they killed the more mana they would have to work with.

On the far side of the battle, Juto and the rest of the company had formed up into a well organized unit. Glaives presented, they charged into the fray together. But the battle was not as one-sided as we had hoped. Even in their confusion the enemy responded quickly, and nearly half their number were awakened.

Solar flares and fiery blades bit back against our ****. A number of the company were out of commission already, either from severe burns, or from falling when their descending lines were burned away. We cut down half the Ootrin **** in short order, but a quarter of our own were out of commission, though I didn’t yet sense any dead. I stretched out my senses, filtering my mana through the web of links that fed back into me. Stabilizing otherwise fatal wounds until they could receive real treatment.

Jito and Kari blazed with silver fire, the two warriors I had healed of grievous Injury had both developed a variant of my own aspect, and it was incredibly eye-catching amongst the chaos. Both of them dodged attacks and cut down foes with graceful efficiency, and their scars shone like beacons, even in the bright daylight. Beacons that drew the enemy’s wrath.

Standing at the front of our formation, both of them now sported numerous injuries, as the Ootrin focused their efforts on the argent duo. It created openings for the rest of the company, but swamped the targeted pair in fallen bodies. Ruining their footing, and leaving them open in turn. I worked through our connection to staunch their bleeding, but struggled to close their wounds in any substantive way while they were moving and fighting.

Things took a turn when Jito slipped, a severed arm turning under his foot. One of the Ootrin took the opportunity to slip through his guard, slashing across his thigh. But the man who had injured him paid for it a moment later, as Kari’s glaive took first his hand, and then his head. Jito was pulled back from the front line, and another moved forward to take his place.

Our squad of heavies were lurking in the rear. Partially because they had spent much of their mana already on altering the terrain, but also because no corrupted shifters had yet joined the fray. Denu, and those of her scouts who hadn’t assisted in preparing the battlefield, were hunting for the Ootrin reserves in the woods. They had been trained in sensing mana, but I spared a little concentration to send them a mental nudge, pushing them toward the corrupted mana as best I could.

Either due to my guidance, or their own skill, Denu’s group located the leashed shifters. Their aspect of air let them close the distance quickly, though not quite quickly enough. I could feel the **** of three shifters, the outpouring of foul energy like flares of light in the darkness. Distinct, but blinding me to anything else. But I could at least tell that there were still more sources of corrupt mana.

It was easy to imagine the scene. The scouts had come upon the shifters, killing three before they had finished their transformations, and then fleeing as the remaining foes turned on them. I stilll wasn’t sure how many shifters there were in total, but it was too many for comfort if I could still feel them through this spiritual noise.

Fortunately at this point Myta had reached the fight. Even without taking a gravity-assisted shortcut, her speed was truly impressive. She cut and burned her way through the line of Ootrin who had turned to face Hati and Saoirse in moments, as they were unprepared for her brutal effectiveness. But rather than mop up the remains of that front, she crashed into the rear of those who were threatening out company’s formation.

Within moments it seemed that half the battlefield was ablaze. Trapped between our company on one side, Hati and the Metic shifters on the other, with Myta in the middle preventing them from forming any sort of order from the chaos, the enemy utterly collapsed. Some tried to make a stand, others to run, but they were all cut down in short order.

Some of our company cheered, ready to relax and lay down arms, but Myta and Hati disabused them of that notion. with harsh shouts. They barely reformed in time as our skirmishes arrived at a run, leaping over Hati’s squad of heavies, pursued by five snarling demons. I seized and strengthened their presence with my own, forming it into a wave, a bulwark of mana. When the shifters hit it, I felt the impact in my soul.

In my soul.

The sensation was familiar, it was the same strain I had felt when exerting my domain. I had always tried to form my domain directly around myself, but it seemed clear that I could extend my influence around my vas and vasra instead. And we needed an edge, badly. With five enemy shifters alive, three demonic spirits forming from the dead, and an unknown number of Pure monks to support them, things could still turn out very badly.

I drew deeply from the company’s mana, in all its forms. Raging fire, fueled by rushing air and nurturing wood, supported by resolute earth. They fed together into a harmonious whole, bound at the seams by the silver flames of transformation, and the hazy iridescence of a unifying vision, a dream that subsumed them all. I pushed my will through the raging torrent of mana, set it to transform the fabric of the world into a haven from our corrupt and fanatical foes.

For a moment the mana coalesced into a spell so powerful it stole my breath away. It teetered in the space between imagination and reality, building in the Radiant Sea, a massive swell in the ocean, poised to strike land and wash over the world. But then the fabric of the world pushed back, seemingly enraged by my hubris. I felt something inside me give way, and the mana blasted back through my spirit, violently rejected. It rushed away, taking my awareness with it.