The Guardians of Celesk

Chapter 24: A Battle of Masters

She could see him ahead in the distance. Her ability gave her a powerful sight, but her paranoia gave her distance. Her focus could pinpoint a distant invader and give her enough locations for an effective ambush and protect her home from invasion. It would take a large party to overwhelm her, and they'd better be armed. She saw two Guardians trotting ahead on horseback, heavily clad in robes but with hoods hanging over the faces to shadow their identity. There would be more in their party, if they followed their usual patterns – Guardians led the way, physically and metaphorically, with a dull and predictable precision.

Yordu scanned ahead. It was hardly a surprise that the path to the Sorcerer's retreat was so difficult- the rough terrain and sheer cliff faces made it a perfect spot for an ambush or to funnel a large force into manageable numbers, decimating their advantage in size. The wind had picked up and billowed in large gusts, swirling around them like a leviathan. In the eye of this swirling storm, he could hear a voice, strong and succinct cut into his mind.

Guardians! You are not welcome here. This is your only warning- turn back now or face my wrath!

Both Yordu and Skyene turned toward one another before Yordu nodded as if to suggest 'We press on'. They looked at the remainder of their party, who had not heard it, but it would be wrong to say they were blissfully unaware of the message being communicated. The whole party could sense a drop in the temperature, given speed by an unnatural presence. This was also enhanced by the swirling winds engulfing them on their wayward path. For all, the tension was very real and for the man in the robe, it had hit a fever pitch.

She was hardly surprised at the arrogance of this Guardian pack. They barely hesitated before ploughing on, despite the urgency of her warning. The rest of the pack, possibly Golden Blade and archers were lurking behind in the shadows, though she could sense them strongly. It was as though they reeked of some plodding and inept version of stealth. To the unenlightened they may have been worthy assassins, but she was beyond their skill. Greater opponents had tried to attack her, and all had fallen. Once again, the two leaders continued to push forward, their heads bowed low in meditation and the sorceress felt the bile rise in her throat, as her smouldering fury began to rise again. The spark of rage could billow into a bonfire of white-hot fury if she let it. This was her tuition, paid in blood and these cretins would pay for it tonight. When the flames of her mind's eye licked higher, she released a bolt of lightning that erupted above the heads of these Guardians and poured down their sides, as though they were untouched. The bolts were very quick but to the enlightened eyes, they appeared to run over an imaginary spherical barrier of the two horses, creating an imaginary flask of energy that could not penetrate the bodies inside, dropping to the ground in redundancy. She heard the words 'Do-kena'- almost a whisper hang over the air. Her anger rose and she channelled a different element; a great ball of flame went rolling across the sky, towards this pack of the unworthy. It was met with a large gust of gale force wind which seemed to blow it back in her direction. It sprinted towards her, a wall of fire at this point. The smoke was starting to sting her eyes as she thrust her arms upward reflexively and sent it up towards the sky. She let the Varasz grow inside of her, a large glowing red orb inside of her chest and she brought her staff upward, poised to aim it down at her new prey. At the pivotal moment, she was interrupted as another voice boomed along with the wind, cutting off all other thought.

Enough!

She held off for a moment before returning to her staff, the red glow returning to her chest and limbs.

I said enough, Sorceress!

At that point she felt a great shuddering of the earth and the ground around her feet suddenly caught her ankles and swallowed them up, letting them languish in the dirt. She turned her staff downwards and fired a pulse at the ground, watching as pieces of soil and clay broke up around her feet.

As she gathered herself, a lone robed figure strode out from behind the shadows with a fierce determination. Each of his footsteps emitted a brief pulse that cascaded outwards. This was no lowly apprentice Guardian, he had the bearing of a master. She smiled to herself.

Perhaps a worthy opponent for once.

The man stepped into the forefront of her gaze, and adroitly flipped up his hood and she saw a familiar face. "Yordu! The peasant! You've been afflicted by age, for time has taken to you with a staff."

"It is the way of things. However, you have not matured by any sense of imagination. You cheated your craft, and now you try to cheat death."

"How so?"

"By outliving your purpose. For you have indeed lost your way."

"Insolence!" She fired a pulse at the two robed figures at Yordu's side. For once he did not parry the attack, instead letting them absorb the blow. Each of the bodies barely moved.

"Brilliant." Yordu lifted the flaps of each hood to reveal their prisoners lost in a deep sleep.

"Pulse energy has no bearing on the unconscious. People call you a Sorceress, and yet all I see is an amateur." She raised her staff again, but Yordu was too quick and sent out his own pulse, which bounced the sorceress off the cliff face, and sent her sliding down to the ground. He started to run toward her and felt the ground tremble beneath him, for in the blink of an eye the sorceress had gone from lying prostrate on the ground to suddenly towering over him on the ground. The tremor sent him to his knees before he was engulfed by a mound of earth. He quickly tried to raise his staff, but she froze it. Her Varasz had hit boiling point, almost to an extreme where a mystical steam appeared to sizzle off her body. "And you call me amateur. Why you were but a lowly ward when I was already a master of my craft. It's time to cast you into the void and let you ponder your own uselessness and how you had the gall to try and challenge someone far superior. It's truly like watching a Kuraha fight a Treol."

"If I fall, others will rise in my place." She pointed her staff in his direction, but her hand was suddenly pierced by an arrow. She let fly a bloodcurdling scream and felt the staff thud to the ground. She looked around for the attacker but was met only by shadow. "Cowards!" she desperately looked for her prey but could only smell a whiff of them. She did not notice Yordu's hand glowing with heat and melting his icy bond. Another arrow came sailing towards her chest but with a blur of motion, she was able to repel it back into the darkness from whence it came. She laughed to think that she had fired back at another attacker, turning the winds of fortune against them. Yordu managed to blast away the rock and dirt forming around his body, emancipating his form from the earth. He was kneeling, with his eyes concentrating ahead. "You know what your largest error is, Galadan?" Her eyes widened at the recognition of her old name being said to her. The glow of Varasz was fading. She also noticed a blade gorged in flame being held at her throat. She finally let her staff fall and relented. Her hand down by her side in a feigned surrender as she glimpsed Skyene behind her, poised to slit her throat at the briefest order.

"You don't trust in others. I may have bested you by myself, sure, but why take the chance when I have others. All I had to do was trust in them and indulge your ego, even making you think you'd won."

"but I...." before she could fully answer, Yordu reflexively placed the palm of his hand to her forehead and she went immediately went limp, falling to the ground for a second time.

"What do we do now?" Skyene asked.

"We bind her, both with straps and the unyielding bond. And then we wait for her to rise again. I'm very desperate to hear her story." They piled her unconscious body on top of the horse, and eagerly searched for the signs that would lead them into her domain. They could only hope that there weren't more traps awaiting them on this next venture.