Ten of Swords (Draft Only)

Chapter 15

Lightning arced across the sky. Rain drummed on the leaves of the forest canopy and slowly smothered the fires that had been lit by the torches. Oil fires weren't doused by the rain, but they wouldn't spread, and the oil would quickly burn off. Firebombs lost their main use of setting fire to the forest but could still be thrown at the druids in combat. Rebels had avoided being negatively affected by the flames by burning the ground in front of them first and wearing damp cloth masks. That way the fire would be moving away from them as they progressed, and the damp cloths would filter out the smoke.

With a major aspect of their assault removed from the equation, the rebel forces could no longer push any further into the grove. The druids no longer had to worry about the flames and were now free to retaliate at full force. A turn in the tide would come swiftly.

Rieza dragged the mage to his feet, seeing the scarring on his hands and face and feeling the heat of his body. It had to be clear now that it was impossible for anyone to truly use the sources as she suspected they could. The source had to be surging for some other reason, unless whoever was using the other sources was doing so by sacrificing their mages to do so. The archdruid squinted at the strange elven man. She didn't trust him, but he had told the truth when he said he only wanted to help. She propped him up against the altar and left him without another word, turning to go aid her people in repelling the invaders.

The mage held onto the altar and took a deep breath. Pain radiated from his chest where she had crushed him, and his skin prickled as if being stabbed with countless needles. Inside he felt numb, like all his other nerves had been burned away. It might have been possible to create a tether that didn't do that to someone, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He would let her believe that her assumptions had been entirely incorrect. It wasn't like she was going to ever leave the grove to join them in their hunt, so she didn't need to know that. If he hadn't had to fight her, he might have had enough time to create a more stable tether. One that didn't dump an ungodly amount of magic into his body.

With the coming of the rain, the battle was short-lived. In absence of the flames the numbers of the rebels became much easier to judge, and there were not nearly as many of them as there were druids. Just as the mage had suspected, their entire assault had hinged on the fire making up for their lack of numbers. Not to mention that without the flames the druids knew their companion creatures were safe and could call them into battle.

Wind screamed through the trees like the shrieking of banshees, and cold rain felt like the stabbing of tiny knives. Elise bandaged her re-opened wound while Sniffles washed his face in the freezing shower of the storm so that he could see and breathe properly. They didn't know how long ago it was that they lost track of Pepper behind them in the haze. Elise had let go of her hand, but she had hoped with every fibre of her being that Pepper would keep following them. There was no way that the flames could have taken her.

They went back, searching for her.

"Pepper!" Elise called out, only to hear no response. "Pepper!" Samson called out too.

Corpses of animals, taken by the smoke, by dehydration, or by exhaustion. They crossed over the untouched earth to where the ground had been scorched and Elise choked on her own voice. Pepper could have gotten confused and turned back after the fires went out. That was why they hadn't found her yet. Or maybe she had gone deeper into the un-charred forest.

"Pepper!"

Still there was no response.

Bodies. Burnt black. They didn't recognise any of them. They didn't want to. They kept looking, certain that she had to be out there somewhere. Death was not something that could touch them. It wasn't allowed to after everything it had already put them through. Neither of them could admit that they had seen another charred corpse on the path they had traveled.