God of Magic 3 Page 17

  The redheaded elf looked reluctant to do so, but she drew her hand back, the light faded, and the chime of the bells stopped abruptly. At once, the dark spots clouded in my periphery again and my arms shook, but I found my voice.

  “Get ready!” I shouted to the rest of the guild, and then I let my arms drop.

  For a heartbeat, the pixie swarm continued to pass over us with no change in their behavior to indicate that they’d noticed us at all. For that moment, I had the brief flicker of hope that the whole swarm might simply fly over us, but then there was a heavy thunk as one of the lower-flying pixies clipped the shield that Maruk had propped up over his head.

  The pixie screeched shrilly as it tumbled into the ditch among us, and I got my first clear look at the creature. Like the little fairies I’d read about in storybooks growing up, it was no longer than the length of my hand, and it sported iridescent wings much like those of a dragonfly. Unlike the pixies I’d read about, this pixie’s otherwise humanoid body was green, segmented like that of an insect, and covered in a shiny layer of chitin. Antennae sprouted from its little head, and little mandibles twitched around its mouth.

  It had rolled into the grass between Maruk and me after it had bounced off the orc’s shield and began to right itself. I was just thinking about whether I should try to crush it or not when Merlin slipped out from where he’d been curled under the bend of my knee, snatched up the pixie, and shoved it whole into his mouth.

  Maruk gave a horrified gasp as Merlin loudly crunched up the pixie, but he didn’t have long to be offended by the puca’s manners. Several more thunks sounded as several more pixies collided with his shield in their flight, and I could feel them smack against the arm I had stretched over my head.

  Another pixie dropped down among us, and before Merlin could catch it or any of us could react in any way but to stare at it, it scuttled forward and bit down hard on my finger.

  I drew my hand back with a hiss and swatted the pixie away, but it was only the first of many. Though most of the swarm passed us by, more and more pixies began to disengage from the pack to investigate us, which I quickly learned involved only one thing: biting us to determine whether we were worth eating.

  Merlin chattered excitedly as the first few pixies came within his reach, and he plucked them out of the air and ate them whole almost as quickly as they came. But as four became a dozen, and a dozen became three dozen and more, Merlin wasn’t quick enough to keep up.

  I did what I could to protect my face as I swatted at the pixies with my hands, and what little I could see of my guild through the descending chaos told me that they were all more or less doing the same thing. Jets of flame shot up at intervals as Emeline tried to ward the pixies away, and even through the near-deafening noise of the swarm, I could hear Lavinia curse as she brandished her knife and sliced at the pixies.

  I craned my neck to try to see how Urim and Sulla fared on Maruk’s other side. The orc pirates had the disadvantage in this scenario of being both the largest targets for the pixies and those with the most exposed skin, and for what was probably the first time, it seemed as though the orcs had found a battle they didn’t thoroughly enjoy. They bared their tusks and bellowed war cries as they snatched pixies out of the air with their bare hands and crushed them in their massive fists. Given the density of the swarm, it was impossible not to catch some, but for the same reason, there were far too many pixies to make the orcs’ strategy effective, and they were bitten and scratched twice over by the rest of the swarm for any number of pixies they managed to kill.

  As I beat back the pixies that flew too close, I realized that the sheer numbers involved meant we might not be able to keep up this rudimentary defense of ours for as long as it would take the swarm to pass. What else could we do? I wracked my mind as I leaned back against the side of the ditch and panted. Killing all the pixies, or even all that hadn’t yet passed us, was unlikely, but they were still basically animals, weren’t they? They had an instinct to survive, and they would turn away in the face of a great enough threat like any normal animal would. What, then, could be threatening enough to deter a swarm of millions of carnivorous pixies?

  As I turned the question in my mind and attempted to form some kind of plan, I tried to gauge how much mana I had left. Thanks to Aerin, I hadn’t used up all of it earlier to cast my illusion, but I still had only a little left, and it would take time we didn’t have to regenerate fully. I could probably manage one good spell, but that would be it.

  Next to me, Merlin bit off the head of another pixie, and I watched as the light of the little creature’s mana flickered out when it died. It gave me an idea. We couldn’t kill all the pixies, no, but if we could kill enough of them all at once, perhaps that would cause the rest of the swarm to flee. We needed to orchestrate one big, coordinated attack to blow a hole in the swarm, and I had just the idea as to how to accomplish that.

  I shuffled over across the grass and leaned in toward Maruk, but I still had to shout several times before the orc was able to hear me.

  “Do we have any guns?” I asked.

  Maruk looked at me as though I’d gone insane.

  “Buns?” he shouted back. “Really, Gabriel, I don’t think now is the appropriate time to be thinking about food.”

  “No, guns,” I repeated, “from the pirates!” In an effort to get the message across, I touched my eyebrow in the same place that Maruk had been burned when the pirate’s mana bullet had collided with my mana shield and hoped he would see what I was trying to say.

  Maruk’s confused frown shifted to a look of recognition, then understanding, and he nodded quickly.

  “Urim had one,” he answered. “I’ll ask him for it.”

  I swatted away more pixies as Maruk turned to his cousin on his other side.

  “Sons?” Urim yelled. “What does that have to do with--“

  “No, guns,” Maruk corrected, and he mimed holding a pistol and pulling the trigger.

  Urim’s eyebrows went up, and he grinned excitedly as he pulled one of the pistols Quikk’s crew had had from his belt and handed it over to Maruk. Maruk turned back to me and passed me the gun, and I nodded to him as I turned to Aerin on my left.

  “Give this to Lavinia,” I told her. “I’m going to create a target, she just needs to shoot on my signal.”

  Aerin stared at the gun and then at me. “What?”

  “Do it!” I urged as I ducked the assault of another three pixies.

  Aerin took the gun and passed it and my orders down to Lavinia, and the ranger gave me a curious look. In response, I pointed up toward the torrent of pixies that still flew above us.

  “Get ready!” I shouted. I didn’t want to waste any mana to do this. The target would have to be a certain size to create an explosion large enough to make a difference, but I’d need to save enough magical power to be able to create a barrier to protect myself and my friends from the blast.

  Lavinia cocked the pistol and held it up, then nodded to me to signal that she was ready when I was.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself, then raised my hand up toward the swarm and cast out the target, a disc of shimmering blue mana about a foot in diameter. I hoped it would be big enough.

  Then I hesitated. The timing for this next step was critical. If I cast the mana shield too soon, Lavinia’s shot would hit it instead of the target, and we’d all be vaporized. If I cast it too late, we’d be killed by the explosion as the shot hit the target. I steeled myself, then turned to Lavinia.

  “Fire!“

  The ranger pulled the trigger, and a bright ball of raw mana exploded from the muzzle of the gun.

  “Everyone, look away!” I ordered. I concentrated the last reserves of my mana and threw up a shield over the ditch to cover my companions and me just as the mana bullet hit the target and detonated it.

  Even turned away, even with my eyes closed, I sensed the blinding flash as the target exploded. The crackling boom it made was like the earth had opene
d up beneath us like a giant egg, louder even than the swarm had been. This was followed by sizzles and a drumming sound like hailstones as sparks from the explosion and the bodies of the pixies that hadn’t been completely vaporized rained down on my mana shield. I held up the shield for as long as I could, but the bodies of the pixies still rained down around us when I was forced to let it dissipate.

  The little corpses that fell among us were so charred and twisted as to be unrecognizable as pixies for the most part, and they had a slightly chemical smell, almost like lighter fluid. Maruk grimaced as he held his shield over his head as an impromptu umbrella, but as I sat back against the side of the ditch, I breathed a sigh of relief. The sky was clear. Whatever remnants of the swarm that had survived the explosion had scattered, or were thrown off-course by the blast. Either way, the only pixies around now were the dead ones.

  “Gods of the Vales,” Aerin breathed, and she threw her arms around me and kissed me.

  For a moment, I stopped and just let myself enjoy the kiss, the softness of the healer’s lips, the comfort of her embrace, but with dead pixies still thudding back to the ground around us, my enjoyment was short-lived.

  “You’re all scratched up,” Aerin said as she pulled away and pushed my hair back to examine my face. “Evarun, look at you.”

  I guided her hand away from my face before she could use all of her mana healing the few bites and scratches the pixies had gotten in. Yvaine’s cloaks, it turned out, could hold up against quite a lot more than bad weather. Though we all looked like we’d just had a tough fight with a tornado of cats and were scratched and bitten on just about every exposed bit of skin, our new cloaks were hardly any worse for the wear. Even the grass didn’t cling to them as much as it should have. Since they were the only two without cloaks, Sulla and Urim were the worst off, but I was relieved to see that the orc pirates had already begun to compare their various injuries eagerly and were obviously excited by the prospect of new scars to show off for their ordeal.

  Though the drain on my mana made me a little wobbly, I managed to get to my feet.

  “Lena, do you have any health potions?” I asked.

  “A few bottles,” the alchemist responded, and she pulled her pack onto her lap and began to dig through it for the potions.

  “Good,” I said with a relieved smile. “Split them up evenly and help Aerin get everyone healed up.”

  A few minutes later, between Lena’s potions and Aerin’s healing magic, there was virtually no sign that we’d been attacked. Well, except for the circle of burnt grass by the ditch and the thousands of tiny pixie corpses that were scattered across the field. I was certain that the explosion would have drawn the attention of the nearby farmers, but either they were all still shuttered in their homes to ride out the swarm, or they were simply too far away to have reached us yet. I decided it didn’t matter, and it was better if we didn’t have to answer any questions, especially since my magic was the cause of the blast. No one argued when I suggested we carry on, and so that was what we did.

  By the time the high, white stone walls of Ovrista rose into view a few hours later, news of the pixie swarm and the explosion in the outlying farmlands had already reached the city, and everyone we passed on the street was talking about it. From snatches of conversation, I gathered that the Mage Academy had already sent out riders to investigate the site, duly suspecting that some strange magic had to have been involved. All the better, then, that we hadn’t delayed there, and that we had been able to heal our wounds before we’d returned here.

  The last thing I needed was to be at the center of an inquiry by the Mage Academy.

  “We will go now,” Urim said when we reached the street that led off toward the black market, “to sell these ogre bones.”

  “You’re leaving already?” Maruk asked with a slight frown.

  “Can’t sell anything where you’re going,” Sulla replied with a shrug. “We’ll ask around for the black market. You know… persuasively.”

  “Well, meet us back at our guild hall when you’re done,” Maruk said. “It’s on Garner’s Cross. I have something I want you to bring to my mother.”

  The pirates nodded, then broke off to go their own way.

  We threaded through the crowd on the main street on our way to the city center. Once we had just reached the lawn that surrounded the University Tower, Aerin suddenly grabbed my wrist, her expression anxious.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go in now,” the redhead urged quietly. Her gaze flicked to the glittering facade of the University Tower. “We can come back later when the archmages aren’t so... well, when they don’t have so much on their plates.”

  Despite her excuse, I knew Aerin wasn’t actually concerned about the archmages’ stress levels. She’d heard the whispers about the investigation into the explosion, and she was near frantic about the mages discovering me on a good day. I couldn’t blame her for being worried, but there was no way for the mages to trace the explosion to us. No one had seen us when we’d dealt with the pixies, and there was no reason for anyone to suspect us.

  “It’ll be alright,” I assured her. “We’re a respectable guild returning from a routine bounty mission. Everyone will be so wrapped up in speculation right now that they won’t even look twice at us.”

  Aerin held my gaze for a moment, then sighed and nodded. “Alright, then.”

  With that, we crossed the lawn and stepped through the tower’s grand double doors.

  Chapter 14

  The University Tower lobby was busier than I’d ever seen it before, though I had always made it a point to arrive at slower times whenever I was forced to come here to submit my mana tithe. Ordinarily, there would only be a few mages passing through on their way to lessons or studying together around the tables by the windows, and a single, sleepy clerk stationed behind the large desk at the end of the room.

  Now, however, the place was buzzing with activity. Several dozen mages, all dressed in sweeping robes that ranged in color from the youngest students’ violet to the professors’ dusky Byzantine purple, either stood in small huddles to whisper about the explosion or pushed out the front doors to join the conversation on the street. They were so preoccupied, in fact, that no one so much as glanced our way when we entered.

  I saw how tense Aerin was as she walked along beside me. I reached out to take her hand and give it a comforting squeeze as we wove through the crowd and made our way to the front desk.

  Instead of the young, sandy-haired student who usually worked as the receptionist when we came here, we were met by an older mage dressed in professors’ robes. He had a neatly trimmed goatee, and his dark brown hair was slicked back against his head with so much gel it was practically a helmet. He watched us closely as we approached from behind thin wire spectacles.

  “We have some books to return for a bounty,” I said as I stopped in front of the desk. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been so abrupt, maybe tried to lighten the mood with some friendly small talk, but the impatient expression on the older mage’s face made me decide that it would be best to just get straight to the point.

  The man’s pale green eyes flicked from me to Aerin, then briefly to the rest of the group behind us.

  “You know,” the mage drawled, “that you can return bounties to the charter office for processing?”

  “Yes,” I answered, careful to keep my tone polite despite the self-importance in the mage’s voice, “but since it’s a Mage Academy bounty, we thought it best to return it directly to you, to help prevent dangerous magical items or texts from falling into the wrong hands.”

  “Very well.” The man sighed through his nose. “The books?”

  I pulled out my copy of the bounty sheet for the mage to stamp as a receipt, then turned back to Emeline. The panthera woman came forward and set the two volumes on the desk before the mage, and she rocked on her heels in excitement.

  The mage slid the books across the desk, checked that they were the correct editions lis
ted on the bounty documents, then stamped the receipt with the Mage Academy’s emblem.

  “You must present your receipt at the charter office to receive payment for the fulfillment of the bounty,” he recited in that same bored drawl, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and tell him that I was well aware of the process.

  “This was for my final exam,” Emeline told the mage, either because she didn’t notice the mage’s open disdain for us or couldn’t contain her excitement. “I’ll get to graduate now.”

  The mage looked down his long nose at the panthera woman. “Congratulations,” he droned, and he had just begun to look back to the books we’d brought when he blinked suddenly and stared at Emeline. “Hold on, you’re--”

  He was interrupted as a man rushed down the stairs on our right and nearly crashed into us. It was Etienne, and the panthera man’s expression was near frantic.

  “Emeline!” Etienne breathed, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”

  I suddenly sensed that several of the mages nearest to us had turned and begun to watch us, and a coil of dread began to form in my gut.

  “What are you talking about?” Emeline said with a little laugh. “I thought you’d be anxious for me to get back.”

  Etienne shook his head and was about to respond when several gray-robed archmages strode up behind him.

  “There,” said one, and he pointed at me. “That’s the mage who was practicing forbidden magic.”

  My blood froze in my veins, and I was just about to try to cast some sort of spell, I didn’t know what, when two of the other archmages pushed past me and grabbed Emeline by the arms.