The Call of Crows

Chapter 19: Impending Doom

One thing about Lokapele's ability is that she never had to maintain control over a piece of magma once she flung it as a projectile.

This let her hail an unending shower of magma onto the Nikan soldiers that had been roused to defend their camp.

A nearly full moon lit the night up, glowing from Lokapele's magma and Seang's blasts of sunlight. The two were with Kameko's group of raiders. Vai and Shakti remained in the city, and Najeem and Shahla had gone into the shadows with their small group.

Lokapele threw up a wall of lava that absorbed about five crossbow bolts before skirting around it and launching a spike of molten rock at each perpetrator. But they only gave way to another dozen soldiers.

Seang bumped into her from the back. "I've got a Bane Knight. Wanna swap?"

Lokapele twisted both herself and Seang around in one fluid motion. She wrapped a band of molten lava around the heavily armored man's right hand. He screamed in pain, dropping his mace. Meanwhile, Seang unleashed a blinding flash of light to the dismay of several enemy soldiers.

Lokapele caught sight of Kameko holding off a Bane Knight with control over fire just with her glaive. The Nikan woman ran the blade through her opponent's throat on a single decisive thrust.

A wave of allied crossbow fire opened a path for them.

"Up the hill!" Kameko shouted, "Get to their food stores!"

Lokapele took a glob of rock from the ground, melted it and tossed it into the sky towards the part of the camp they ran from. It came down like a rain of fire, setting a decent chunk of tents aflame.

She would have sent another rain, were it not for a sudden and powerful gust of wind accompanied by the scream of an enslaved Shedim.

A Bane Knight, clad in black armor and wielding a quarterstaff, appeared out of the darkness and slammed the iron rod into her gut. Lokapele's breath evacuated her lungs as she collapsed to the ground, coughing up spittle.

She struggled as the Bane Knight pressed his staff to her throat. Panic surging through her, Lokapele grabbed her jade paddle from the waistband of her skirt and jammed the edge into the Knight's windpipe, sending him coughing and sputtering away from her.

Lokapele staggered to her feet and picked up a sphere of lava. She launched it at the recovering Knight, but he knocked it away and thrusted his staff forward, unleashing a blast of wind that threatened Lokapele's balance.

She held her ground as a crossbow bolt nearly pierced the Bane Knight's back of the knee. With his attention diverted, Lokapele heated, then cooled the earth under his foot, trapping his ankle in burning igneous rock.

The Knight roared in pain as the heat reached him. Lokapele quickly tore off his helmet, smacked him in the side of the head with the blade of her paddle, then dumped magma onto his head as he hit the ground, not giving him time to scream.

Out of breath, Lokapele took a few steps back.

This siege was her first time involved in actual war. She was accustomed to violence, what with the warring tribes among Aotearoa. But never on this scale.

She never would have made someone suffer a death by drowning in lava. But in her desperation to keep up with her surroundings, her methods had gotten crueler.

This was no honorable duel between the champions of two tribes or a free for all where the goal was to simply defeat or rout your opponent through skill.

Out here, men either killed or got killed. Mercy and virtue in war were foreign concepts to these mainlanders.

Kameko's raiders ran down the grassy hills like rambunctious children, except they were setting fire to everything they saw. All the meanwhile, most of their comrades lied dead behind them, staining the grass with crimson.