Eros

Breath in the Smoke - 67

"Sajir! He..." Vera started in outrage, but her voice faded out. Vineclaw already knew she lost a son. Alora could see it in the stillness of her body. The hardness in her eyes.

"Stay hidden and keep up the pressure." Ma Vineclaw said, voice clear and cold. "I'll go out to kill that magus."

"I want nothing more than that magus dead. But revealing yourself to him is a mistake." Alora said.

"We let him keep doing what he's doing, and we're over. He just exhausted himself, now is the time to strike." Vineclaw insisted, stepping towards the end of the platform, towards the battlefield below.

"I agree on the when, just not on the how." Alora said, and Vineclaw stopped. She looked back at her.

"What do you propose then?"

"We've seen how powerful he is. None of us can reach here from here, and none of us can win him in direct confrontation, even when he's tired, he's surrounded by magi to back him up."

"That's old news, Alora." Vera said, the hiss of her voice ever so suitable for mockery.

"But what if we could reach him from here?" Alora continued, and the two Ferals became puzzled in thought. She reached to point at one of great trees, turned into a pyre almost at the center of the battlefield, a hundred paces from the tree they hid in.

"That tree is burnt. We cannot manipulate what is without life." Vineclaw frowned.

"That tree isn't burnt, it is burning. And you know what part of it isn't burning?" Alora lowered her pointing finger to the earth below that tree. Vera snorted.

"You think us moving a few roots will succeed where the Chieftain and the bladedancers failed?"

"Yes." A sly smile tugged at Alora's lips. "As long as we move them all in the right direction."

-

Raul tore a slim piece of salted meat with his teeth, then downed in with a gulp from the sweetened wineskin. Long years of training and warring taught him that magical stamina is restored the same way of the physical sort; rest and nutrition. So in the very center of the battlefield, as steel rung, fire cackled, and arrows flew, Raul sat in a folding chair, ate, drank, and rested.

Occasionally, he dispatched an order, setting a priority target or moving the Mageguard to reinforce struggling flanks. He had the magi to stop burning trees, else they would trap their own army in a fire too immense for even them to contain. But all in all, the battle fell into course. A slow, but steady current that carried the blood smeared shine of gold and crimson over more and more elven corpses.

He swung his gaze to one of the trees behind them as it groaned. The High Magus blinked his eyes, thinking the smoke screen might be playing tricks on him. It wasn't. The burning, gigantic tree was tilting. Tilting over them.

"Clear the area!" Raul yelled, rising from his chair too fast for his old bones. "The tree is toppling!"

The tree groaned louder. A deep grate to echo over chaos of war. It loomed overhead like a giant of fire, leaning to peek upon the mortals below. All fled from its fiery glare.

"Mageguards! Don't scatter! Keep your flanks, the magi must not be exposed!" Raul screamed as he strode. But his instructions were lost in the panic as volleys of arrows and bands of bladedancers came at the Veramorians from every direction they fled to. The tree came so close Raul could feel the heat of its blaze.

"Damn the gods." He leapt with a stretch of his arms back, launching himself on a powerful rush of wind. The crash of the tree behind him trembled the earth, sprayed splinters of snapped, flaming branches, and ended the screams of the hopeless in a blunt thunder.