Chapter 5:

The Cost of an Opening

The Heretic Red Mage

Nimiwa hauled the overloaded sack onto one shoulder and grabbed my wrist with her free hand. “We go.” She yanked me toward the rear opening.

A bolt tore through the lodge where my head had been a moment earlier. It easily passed through the leather walls and buried itself deep into a support pole on the opposite wall.

If Paladins were the Imperial Order’s anvil, Arbalest Zealots were the hammer. Slow to reload, but powerful enough to punch through armor and burn whatever survived.

White fire erupted along the shaft.

I reached toward the nearest pile of ritual objects and grabbed the first thing long enough to resemble a weapon.

It was a hollow tube made of wood. As I lifted it, something inside shifted with a soft rush like falling rain.

Nimiwa stopped and stared at it. “That calls rain.”

“It can also break a nose.”

“You cannot fight with that.”

“I couldn’t fight with the sword either.”

Another bolt cut through the front wall and struck a support pole. The lodge started leaning.

Zealots needed time to wind those weapons before they were ready to fire again. Not much, but perhaps enough for one pack-rat oracle to escape with centuries of records.

The tribe had spilled blood pulling me from the convoy. I could not repay that with a stick, but I could at least buy them a bit of time.

I stepped toward the front opening, where the next Zealot would have a clear view of me.

“Throw your sack outside and run after they fire.”

Nimiwa’s eyes brightened. “You have Redborn power?”

“I know how long it takes them to reload.”

Her certainty faltered.

“Go.”

She hurled the sack off her shoulder and through the rear opening. Before Nimiwa could follow, the lodge folded sideways.

She threw herself into me. We hit the ground hard with her body pressed along mine while burning fragments scattered across the floor.

Nimiwa raised herself over me, one knee between my legs and both hands planted against my chest.

“You stay alive.”

“You were supposed to run.”

“I do not leave you.”

A third bolt passed through the falling lodge.

She looked down at our position, color rushing into her ears. Apparently, practical contact acquired meaning when our faces were too close for strangers to feel comfortable.

“We should discuss this later.”

She scrambled away.

“No discussion.”

“Then stop giving me memorable rescues.”

We crawled through the rear of the lodge. Nimiwa seized the sack where it had landed. I discarded the rain stick before anyone could demand I summon a storm with it.

The camp had become a maze of fire and moving bodies.

Elves carried bundles toward narrow paths between the trees. Others dragged the wounded on woven panels converted into makeshift stretchers. Warriors returned arrows while Paladins pushed steadily into the clearing behind overlapping shields of light.

The Church had closed into a moving box of Aegis light. Crossbows appeared through narrow gaps, fired, then withdrew to be wound again. Two Clerics remained protected at the center, their maces glowing whenever the elves managed to draw blood.

An Inquisitor walked behind them.

He wore white robes beneath a red and gold vest with a purple cape dragging behind. Light gathered around the head of a long iron staff he carried, which was topped with the seven-winged seal of the Church.

The light lanced between the trees. An elf screamed as the spell passed through his shoulder.

It burned a clean hole through flesh, hide, and the tree behind him.

At the rear of the formation, a reinforced wagon pulsed with blue light.

The Life Mage stood on its roof.

He had already opened the throat of whatever prisoner had been chained inside. Blue veins ran from the wagon wheels into the earth and surfaced beneath the advancing formation.

The Church had brought enough power to burn the camp and enough healing to make sure resistance accomplished nothing.

Nimiwa pulled me toward the forest.

I wouldn't budge.

An elf stepped from behind a tree and hurled a spear of orange light.

It struck the nearest Paladin’s barrier.

Gold and orange flashed but the barrier held.

A second elf threw at the same target. A second useless explosion of light.

The Paladins continued walking.

“They don’t understand,” I said.

Nimiwa pulled harder. “We leave.”

“Your warriors are attacking the shields.”

“Sun Braves break walls.”

Another orange spear shattered against the Aegis.

“Not that many.”

The Zealots returned fire. One bolt punched through the Sun Brave’s chest and carried him into a tree. White fire spread across his body before he could scream.

Nimiwa tugged at me again.

“They will kill you.”

“They’re doing a respectable job of killing everyone else first.”

Near the remains of the healing lodge lay a pile of weapons stripped from the convoy. The flamberge rested across the top.

I pulled free of Nimiwa and grabbed it.

The weight nearly dragged my shoulder from its socket.

Nimiwa stared at me.

“You cannot use.”

“I can point.”

Keme emerged behind a lodge that was still standing, his bone shield braced against incoming bolts. He shouted at Nimiwa, then pointed toward the withdrawal path.

“He says wounded cannot pass. Church blocks way.”

That explained why he had not abandoned the clearing already.

“Tell him to stop attacking the Paladins.”

Nimiwa hesitated.

“Nimiwa.”

Her attention snapped toward me at the unfamiliar seriousness in my voice.

Then she shouted to Keme.

His refusal was short and required no translation. Nimiwa provided the reason anyway.

“He says Sun Braves break defenses.”

“They break ordinary defenses. The Paladins want him to keep attacking theirs.”

Nimiwa translated.

Keme glanced toward the advancing formation.

An Inquisitor’s spell lanced across the clearing and punched through the lodge behind him. Painted hide blackened around two smoking holes.

Keme crossed the distance between us and landed with his shield raised.

I lowered the flamberge and scratched a square into the dirt. Two marks inside, several behind and a circle at the rear.

“The Paladins are not the target,” I said. “Neither are the men carrying the crossbows.”

Nimiwa translated.

I pointed toward the Zealots. One pushed the front of his weapon through a gap between two barriers.

“The weapons leave the shields when they fire. Hit them before they pull back.”

Keme watched the crossbow disappear behind the gold wall then spoke.

“He asks about Clerics.”

I marked both sides of the square.

“Wound both flanks at once. Make them split.”

Keme answered before Nimiwa finished.

“He says shields remain.”

“Then use smoke like before. Those ceramic balls will make the Inquisitor choose between firing blind and doing nothing.”

Nimiwa added something in Elvish and pointed toward several clay jars stacked beside a fallen lodge.

Keme looked from them to the formation. The Paladins were less than thirty paces away. He raised his ax and shouted.

The elves answered from the trees with a Sun Brave already moving.

A Zealot pushed his arbalest through the shields. The Brave’s spear struck the winding mechanism just as the Zealot fired. The weapon twisted, trapping the sanctified bolt in its channel. White fire erupted between the shields.

The Paladins tightened their wall around the maimed Zealot, opening a narrow gap on the opposite side. An arrow found the gap and buried itself beneath a Paladin’s arm.

One Cleric moved.

The other remained at the center and raised his mace. Pale light divided between both sides of the formation, weaker but still enough to keep the wounded standing.

Keme looked toward me.

“Smoke,” I said.

Nimiwa shouted.

Clay spheres came from three directions. One struck a shield and bounced back among the elves before shattering. Another broke harmlessly against a tree. The rest burst beneath the Paladins, and black smoke rolled through both formations until I could no longer tell whose screams belonged to whom.

The Inquisitor raised his staff and light erupted.

A widening sweep tore through the black cloud. Dirt exploded beneath it, and the smoke split apart.

The spell cleared the Church’s sightline but it also carved through the back of one Paladin and caught the wounded Zealot before he could crawl free.

The formation faltered just enough for Keme to see it. He understood battle, and by the time I realized the opening had appeared, he was already forcing his shield into it.

He drove into the exposed flank, and the elves followed. They slipped between trees, struck at unprotected legs and dragged wounded soldiers beyond the reach of the Clerics.

The formation bent around them.

Then the ground beneath us began to glow blue. Thin lines spread through the dirt, branching between bodies, roots and discarded hides.

Nimiwa stopped translating as her eyes followed the veins toward the wagon.

“What is that?”

I had seen the same pattern beneath a warehouse years ago.

Only half the building had remained afterward.

“Move.”

The blue veins brightened.

The Life Mage stood on the wagon roof with both hands raised. Blood streamed from his dagger into the light surrounding him.

He was not feeding the formation anymore. He was taking everything back.

“Inside their shields!” I shouted.

Nimiwa stared at me.

“Tell them.”

“That is enemy.”

“Outside the spell takes them without resistance. Get inside and the Paladins will protect anything behind the Aegis.”

She translated.

Keme’s answer came from somewhere inside the fighting.

“He says impossible.”

The blue circle expanded beneath the Church formation. When the Paladins noticed it, one looked back toward the wagon and screamed an order. Others turned their shields inward, trying to protect themselves from their own mage.

The Church had never objected to the cost of victory. Its soldiers were less eager to pay it.

Keme understood.

He drove his shield into the nearest Paladin and forced himself through the fractured line. Elves followed him, closing around the Church soldiers until friend and enemy were too tangled to separate.

The Life Mage hesitated for a moment, then he brought the dagger down.

Blue light consumed the clearing.

Heat rolled across the clearing without flame.

Leaves shriveled. Grass blackened. A wounded Zealot collapsed into gray skin and empty armor.

Two elves fell beside him.

The first wave struck the Aegis Shields. Blue cracks raced across their golden surfaces, but the barriers kept those crowded behind them from being consumed outright.

Paladins screamed alongside elves.

The spell did not distinguish faith from heresy. It only consumed whatever lived.

Then the light vanished.

One Cleric remained crouched behind the deepest layer of broken shields. The other lay beside him, reduced to gray skin inside collapsed white robes.

The Life Mage sagged against the wagon rail, suddenly old and trembling.

The damaged Aegis Shields could no longer be maintained. For the first time, nothing stood between the Sun Braves and the wagon.

One of them did not waste the opportunity. His spear struck the Life Mage in the chest.

Orange fire swallowed the wagon roof. When it cleared, nothing remained above.

The surviving Paladins closed around the remaining Cleric. The Inquisitor dragged himself upright, his staff beginning to glow again.

Keme looked toward the Imperial Order soldiers, then toward the wounded elves being carried into the trees.

He shouted a command and the tribe withdrew.

The withdrawal began as an order and dissolved into whatever each person could manage. Some wounded were carried. Others were dragged by their arms or ankles. The remaining Sun Braves hurled light into the trees behind us, dropping trunks across the Church’s advance.

Nimiwa seized my wrist and I finally went with her.

We ran into the dark while wounded elves cried out ahead of us and the Church began rebuilding its formation in the clearing.

Nimiwa moved too quickly.

I caught my foot beneath a root and nearly dragged both of us down.

She stepped in front of me, took my wrists and returned my hands to her hips.

“Step where I step.”

“This again?”

“You cannot see.”

Behind us, the Cleric’s healing light rose through the branches. They were already rebuilding their wall.

Ahead, the elves disappeared deeper into the forest.

Nimiwa slowed enough for me to breathe.

“You knew how defeat them.”