Theurgy: Forsaken Oaths (Book Two)

Chapter 64 The Broken Mantel

It was all happening too fast for Thyra. She had only just seen the sorcerer rise from the snow as she started dismounting her horse. The men who followed her raised their spears and swords in response, only to either be blown away or frozen where they stood. It was a scene out of her worst nightmare. The sorcerer, their arm was clearly broken from falling from their dragon, but that only seemed to enrage the catastrophic abilities as everyone scattered from her first assault, not wishing to become the next target her, which quickly made Njal, still rearing his horse away from from the scene, her next target. Thyra watched as the sorcerer raised their hand just as it began to rear back from her, throwing Njal off and onto the ground. But as he shook off the dirt and snow from his face, the horse, now frozen solid, fell just next to him, almost crushing him. That narrow brush with death could not register in his mind, though, only the threat before him as the sorcerer smiled wickedly at him. Njal grunted as he hopped onto his feet, just narrowly avoiding a blast of icy wind that would have frozen him to in place. He frantically drew forth his father's blade from his side just as a spire f ice ripped through his chest plate and impaled itself into his chest. If not for the durability of the empirical armor he wore, he would have been dead, but instead, the wind was knocked from his lungs, and he was sent onto his back, rearing from the intense pain of cold coursing through his body.

Rise, he demanded his body. Rise, Thyra needs you!

He tried raising his sword again, but a foot slammed against his wrist, breaking it and forcing a cry from Njal as he looked up at the snarling smiling face of his soon-to-be executioner.

"You Morenians, dog," she said gleefully, shoving the ice spike slowly into his chest further. "You may run, you may hide behind the southern traitors, but we, the true Borean, the descendants of Zethes, will do righteous vengeance upon you. Tell me what last words you wish to utter before I send you and your kinsmen to hell!"

"Get off my brother," a roar interrupted Njal as he just began to speak, to beg to spare his sister's life. But those words made them both falter. Instead of fleeing like some of the soldiers, Thyra continued her charge on her horse. She held no blade, only a tiny curved black and white horn, aiming the tip of it at the sorceress as she yelled. She tried summoning that power, as she trained to do. But her heart and mind were too frantic and scattered between so many emotions, namely fear, as the sorcerer recognized what she was trying to do and pointed her own talisman at the charging little girl. Thyra could only faintly grasp the power of ice and wind, while this sorcerer trained for years to harness its power could summon it at will in the form of a column of powerful winds that threw her off her horse. Then, the sorcerer returned to Njal and froze his broken arm on the ground. He struggled, but through the pain, he could barely even feel his arm, let alone break the ice. Still, he struggled to move, to no avail, as the sorcerer strode to where Thyra had now fallen, and the soldiers prepared to mount a counter to the sorcerer.

"Stay there," she glanced back with a toothy grin. "This might take a while."

A few of the soldiers who carried bows did begin to fire to slow her down, but with a simple gesture, their trajectory went askew. Thyra, who had fallen in a daze, slowly began to recover and noticed that the talisman had flown from her hand. She hurriedly began sifting through the snow to try and find it but was stopped as the sorceress grew near, a malicious smile on her dark blue face.

"Where is your talisman, novice?" she laughed, holding forward her talisman. "Don't tell me you've lost it. Dear, oh dear, you would never be a sorceress if you lost your greatest weapon. Now tell me, are you one of the chief's children as well?"

Thyra did not immediately answer; her eyes looked around for the talisman. Then she spotted it, right behind the sorcerer half buried, only the very tip exposed. "I am Thyra, daughter of Njal, heir to the throne of Morenia."