Tak

The War Wizard - Part 9

     Tak was numb with the cold and only barely conscious, but he just had the strength to look up when he heard the chanting of magic words above the howling of the cyclone. Jarlon had stepped back a few yards to clear some space between him and the younger wizard, and the ground between them was rising up, as if something massive and powerful was pushing up from below. It was a wall of earth and rock, pulled up from deep underground by the power of Jarlon's magic, and it towered between them, casting a dreadful shadow across the terrified young man. Then it began to tip over, to crush Tak like a beetle. The sheer weight of rock able to overpower even the most powerful defensive spell ever conceived.

     Anger flared up in him, hot and terrible. No! He would not die like this. On his knees, like a beaten slave. He would at least die fighting, like a man! He reached into his pocket to find one of the small, iron fists he'd had a blacksmith make for him some months earlier. Then he reached out his arms, the fist sitting in one open palm, and began to chant the words of Fist of the Father.

     The wall of rock was blasted outwards, exploding into a thousand flying fragments, and at the same time the tornado petered out, the winds dying and the blizzard spell released to dissipate harmlessly. Tak pulled himself weakly to his feet and staggered away from the remaining falling boulders, only to fall as his feet slipped on a half dried cowpat. He landed heavily on his side with a thump that sent screams of pain through his frostbitten flesh. He scrambled back to his feet, his only thought to get as far away from the enemy wizard as possible.

     Then gentle hands were on him, helping him back to his feet. "Easy, easy now," said Ehr Laing, glancing uneasily at where the remains of the wall of rock were lying in an untidy heap. "Wait here."

     She crept cautiously around the rubble, her hands out ahead of her, fingers and thumbs in position to cast a spell the moment the enemy wizard showed himself. Tak knew he should stay where he was, that if he followed her she would have to protect him as well as herself, but his most basic instincts wouldn't let a woman face danger alone and he still had a small amount of magic he could use if she suddenly came under attack. Around them, warriors of both armies kept to a safe distance even as they continued to fight, not wanting to get involved in a wizards' duel.

     The redhead was on the other side of the rockpile from Tak now, and he heard her give a gasp of surprise as she bent down to examine something. Tak froze in place, his heart hammering, and the words of attack spells sat on the tip of his tongue as he waited to see what would happen.

     Suddenly she jumped back to her feet, though, grinning with delight, and beckoning for him to join her. He ran over, wondering what she could possibly have found, and he almost fainted in astonishment when he saw the huge, hairy arm trapped under a large boulder; the thick, calloused fingers limp and lifeless and the elbow bent at an unnatural angle.

     "Is that...?" he began hesitantly, not wanting to say it out loud because it was so ridiculous. So impossible.

     Ehr Laing was casting a levitation spell on another boulder, though, lifting it away, and she laughed in delight at the crushed ruin of a face she found below. "Jarlon the merciless!" she said, clapping her hands. "Dead!"

     "Dead?"

     "You killed him. You threw his own spell back on him. The rocks that were supposed to crush your magical defences crushed his instead."

     "But I was beaten!" protested Tak. "You saw how I was! He had me! All he had to do was wait for the cyclone to fail." Realisation came to him suddenly. "He must have panicked when he saw you coming. You killed him, not me."