I thought it rather telling that the other four’s response to vandals and the implied combat was to rush forward while I wanted to go look for the heroes Revayne had mentioned. It took me an embarrassingly long second after they rushed forward to realize and follow after them.

  I hadn’t been sure what a ‘warehouse’ was, but given context I had to assume that it was the large building with people fighting outside it. The guards wore green decorations on their armor and were almost exclusively fighting with their back to the building. Their assailants wore a motley assortment of armors and mottled clothes. From the looks of things, mainly the number of corpses in the street and the uniforms on them, the guards weren’t doing the greatest.

  “Right,” Cecilia was saying as I came around the corner. “What we need to do is support the defense points. I see two entrances…”

  “I will handle the five on that entrance,” Ignas declared before charging forward towards a group on the longer side of the building.

  Cecilia made to grab him, but Ignas was already beyond her reach. That got her to start cursing. And though I didn’t catch the exact words, the body language was pronounced enough to convey her frustration.

  “Don’t be offended,” Faith said dryly, “His kind are well known for running off ahead and alone and suffering appropriately for their foolishness.”

  “BY CLAW AND SCALE!” Ignas cried, leaping at the closest assailant. I wasn’t sure if yelling was the smartest option, but he made it work. Two of the assailants turned to face him, costing him the advantage of surprise, but giving the two beset guards better odds, especially when one of the guards took advantage of the surprise to slide their sword past an assailant's shield.

  Cecilia looked unamused, “Well, I’d rather not have him die before I get a chance to ream him for his stupidity. Could you back him up?”

  Faith smiled and moved forward, pulling the shield from their back and a one-handed club from their hip. It had spikes like a kanabō, but was shorter so it could be wielded in one hand and had the spikes focused on the ball at the end instead of along the length. “Oh yes, of course. I will need to be close to him in case he falls.”

  “For healing?” Cecilia asked skeptically.

  There was a laugh, “Yes, healing. I suppose that is where I should start.”

  I wasn’t sure what they meant by that, but the death rattle of one of the guards told me that we didn’t have time to think. Cecilia clearly agreed, immediately pointing to the group to our right on the shorter side of the building that had the larger entrance. “Right, I’m going to go over there and support that group. Dorekilik, can you gain some ground and put that bow to work? Kara, get casting. Put those spells where you think they’ll help.” And with that she pulled the massive sword from her back and charged into battle.

  “Where I think they’ll help?” I asked at Dorekilik, turning as I started to talk. “I don’t know what..” But he was gone, halfway up one of the nearby buildings, climbing the stone walls as easily as one might climb a ladder.

  I sighed and looked over the battlefield again, trying to figure out how to apply the maddeningly imprecise commands. To my left, Faith and Ignas seemed to be doing well against the group of assailants and to my right, Cecilia had plowed into the second group with a wave of dark emanations that seemed to erupt from her body in waves.

  “That doesn’t look like a spell,” Rin commented.

  She’s right that doesn’t, I wonder how she’s…. I shook my head and pulled myself back to the situation at hand. Contemplation was not helping. As I continued to chastise myself, I also took a small amount of energy and let my foxfire free, pooling into four persimmon sized balls of fire.

  Seeing that Ignas and Faith were fighting one person each, I instead focused on Cecilia who had thrown herself into the middle of a crowd of assailants and forcing them to pull their attention from the otherwise pinned guards. Fortunately, it seemed that the few hits the assailants managed to land on her weren’t enough to pierce her armor. However, she was still outnumbered and they were starting to spread out, moving to encircle her. Having people in your blind spots seemed like a problem that I could help fix. Picking the one who I could see the most of I moved forward and let one of the balls of foxfire loose. It arced through the air and splashed squarely into my target’s back, splashing him in a wave of flame and staggering him forward.

  However, he was far enough away that he managed to scramble out of the swing of Cecilia’s sword before it caught him in his chest. Hair singed and back smoking slightly, he whipped around and his eyes quickly settled on me. Then his eyes went wide, face twisting into shock and fear as he eyed the remaining three balls of fire.

  “Mage!” he shrieked, causing several pairs of eyes to turn to me. I was beginning to panic about that much steel when an arrow took one of the men in the throat and Cecilia brought her sword down hard on one of the distracted men. I didn’t see any blood, but given the cry of pain and how he collapsed to the floor, he was probably out of the fight.

  Of the remaining four assailants, three turned back to Cecilia but the remaining broke ranks to rush me. Sword held high, he rapidly closed the distance. Cecilia’s armor might’ve been able to turn swords aside, but I had no such protections. Visions of what that blade might do to my skin caused me to panic, loosing all three foxfires in one go. The first fire he managed to barely side step, but his desperation in doing so caused the second to clip his arm. He staggered, gasping in pain and then the third caught him square in the chest.

  Somehow, that wasn’t enough to stop him. Wheezing in pain, he staggered forward, his sword swinging at me. I scrambled backward, all but throwing myself out of the way desperately trying to avoid letting the steel cross my skin. The first swing was too short, the second went wide, but the third managed to catch my tunic and nick the skin underneath before I managed to roll aside before it dug too deep.

  Unfortunately, rolling away from the blow caused me to slam into the wall of the building and knocked the breath from me. I staggered, sure I was dead but the blow didn’t come. I righted myself and found my attacker leaned against the same wall as me still gasping for breath. With a scowl and a grunt, he pushed off the wall, sword leading towards me.

  I backpedaled once more, silently hoping that the path was clear and managed to avoid the sword’s tip. The follow up swing from my came in from the right side, wide and arcing, forcing me back once more. The blade missed me once more and slammed into the wall instead, drawing sparks and producing a horrific sound. He paused on the wall after that, clearly winded.

  “Why won’t you die?” he angrily asked. I couldn’t think of a response to that and clearly he wasn’t looking for an answer given how he immediately lunged forward again, blade leading and sending me scrambling back once more.

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the blade that he was desperately trying to put in me and I equally wanted to avoid.

  “If you don’t stop him, he will eventually succeed.”

  That thought slid over me like cold water, dread seeping from my gut. I was going to die here. Months from home. Alone. No. No. NO! Not an option. Not acceptable. I needed him away from me. I needed space.

  Mindlessly, my fingers started to move, channeling energy with the sole purpose of keeping me alive. If his actions had been angry before they turned downright frantic as I began to cast.

  “Die!” He yelled, madly swinging at me. “Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”

  The blade consumed my attention, pulling my focus to it and nearly distracting me from my spell. Thankfully, I had done these forms enough times that it was rote, something I could do without real conscious thought. The energy pooled, the spellforms directed it, all the while I scrambled frantically away.

  He was midswing when the spell completed, a torrent of water erupting from my palms. I had aimed for his chest, hoping to push him back as much as possible, but our differences in height meant that it also drove him upward, sending him arcing through the air and then slamming in the ground, crumpling on the stones. I thought the jet of water had been impressive when it had cleared my cairn all those days ago, but watching it carry a man away was something else. Unbidden, a giggle of relief reached my lips. I had done it, pushed him away. And better, it had apparently knocked him out, so I was safe.

  I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to collapse. I took a moment to breathe and it was only then that I realized the sounds of combat hadn’t stopped. Cecilia was down to two assailants now and one of them was wounded. The third had a pair of arrows sticking from his back. I couldn’t see Ignas or Faith from this angle but I could hear Ignas still yelling phrases.

  Right. There was more going on. We had come here for a reason. The boom.

  Wait, where had the boom come from?

  There hadn’t been an obvious source from what I had seen. But the noise had definitively come from this area. Where was…

  And then the sky rumbled again and the warehouse before me exploded into a shower of bricks, falling like Shardstorm chunks. I wasn’t even close enough to be splashed by the debris, but I still instinctively covered my eyes. After a moment, when the cacophonous echo had died down, I was able to lower my arm and survey the damage.

  A hole, maybe as wide as I was tall, had appeared in the upper section of the warehouse near the ceiling, with the bricks above it and the roof above starting to bow without the removed sections to support them. What had done this? There were no residual effects like there would be for a spell, but there was nothing else I could think of that could possibly…

  “Cannon, far side!” I heard Dorekilik yell, pulling my attention from the damage and to the present. Kilik hadn’t waited, taking off along the rooftop towards the other side of the building. Cecilia pulsed with dark energy once more and the burst that came from her tore into the two remaining assailants, knocking them down. There was a pause after the darkness faded before she took off running towards the far side of the building.

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  Was everyone mad? They had something that could tear through a building that easily and their response was to run towards it? Winter’s Roar, if it could punch holes in buildings imagine what it could do to one of us.

  “The booms had a notable gap between them, which suggests the ‘cannon’ cannot be fired immediately.’

  Ah! Which meant that there was time before it could devastate again. Now it made sense. It was difficult, but with some notable aches and soreness, I managed to run after them.

  Despite their lead, I was able to catch up to Cecilia, weighed down in armor as she was. It wasn’t long after that the Kilik joined us. How he got down from the roof, I didn’t know, but he easily kept pace.

  We came around the corner to find a collection of men, maybe a score, of men arrayed in a defensive position around a black metal canister sitting atop a wagon. Four of the men were doing something involving what I guessed was the cannon while the rest had taken up defensive stances. On the far side Faith and Ignas were fighting with a few of the men, but they weren’t making much progress.

  One of the bigger men, paying Ignas and Faith no mind, stood up behind the line and waved his hand, sword point down. I wasn’t sure what the point of it was, but Cecilia and Kilik slowed to a stop. I followed their lead, uncertain of the reasoning. The three of us stood maybe four paces from the rest of the armed men. No one put their weapons away, but they also weren’t pointing them at us yet.

  One of the larger men in the back spoke up, raising his voice to be heard as Ignas and Faith continued to fight.

  “Don’t suppose you want to just walk away,” he asked in crisp Runna, impressive given how flat his nose was.

  “I was about to ask you the same,” Cecilia said. The words were amicable and polite, but I could feel the undercurrent of threatened violence there.

  “We’ll be out of here in just a few seconds,” the man said agreeably, but firmly. Behind him the man with the staff had it well down the barrel, but was starting to pull it out. The men on the wagon started to clear, which didn’t seem like it boded well for us. At the very least the opening wasn’t pointed at us, but given everything else letting them do whatever they wanted wasn’t acceptable. Cecilia wasn’t going to get to them with her sword in time, which meant it had to be..

  Kilik’s arrow flew before I could even finish the thought, catching the man with the stuffing staff in the arm. I hadn’t even seen him draw. Unfortunately, the man didn’t go down, but we had more pressing concerns.

  Cecilia pushed forward, her massive sword swinging with a trail of that shadowy energy behind it. The man closest to her put his shield into it, but it did him no good. The energized blade dented the shield and the man fell with an agonized scream.

  The men moved to compensate. Most of them were moving to encircle and engage Cecilia but three broke around her to come towards Kilik and myself. I heard Kilik draw at my side, but I put that thought aside as I pooled my energy into making more foxfire.

  Unfortunately, that had about the same response as earlier in the fight.

  “MAGE!” one cried.

  “GET HER!” another responded.

  “Oh, come on,” I complained.

  “It might be prudent to learn to fight with your kaiken so that this doesn’t keep happening.”

  “Not helping Rin. Got any helpful advice?” I thought at her angrily.

  Dorekilik scattered to the right, looking to get a better angle on the advancing men, but only succeeding in splitting the group into the one who followed him and the two coming after me. I let my volley of foxfire go, two at each of the men. Unfortunately, only two found their mark, one on each target.

  “Yes. Splitting your attacks was inefficient. You barely survived one assailant, two will likely kill you. In the future you should really be focusing your attacks and looking to remove one from the fight.”

  A bit late for that, but I couldn’t really spare the moment to be angry as the two men had closed. They split to the sides, looking to encircle me. That, despite my lack of combat training, was clearly the way to a quick death. I pooled foxfire again and tried not to worry about how it was getting harder to do so. The flames made them stutter for but a second before firming their gaze.

  The one on my left stepped forward, sword leading, forcing me to dodge back and right, which unfortunately put me closer to the other man. He took advantage of the step, to lunge forward, aiming directly at my abdomen. I scrambled sideways, turning what would’ve probably been a lethal stab into a knick on my arm. Reflexively, I let the four orbs of fire go, sending them sailing directly at the man. I tried not to be too happy at how wide his eyes got as he dove for cover. Unfortunately, only one found the mark, but driving him away had bought me some time and space.

  Which I immediately had to use to avoid the follow up from the other attacker. Empty night, there was no rest, was there?

  I stepped back, dodging a horizontal slash, and then to the left avoiding the follow up rising slash. This had the small advantage of putting the two of them in a line with me, stifling their attack for a moment and letting me loop back towards the group where maybe someone would be able to help me. I spared a quick glance and immediately regretted it. Cecilia, Faith, and Ignas were all heavily engaged. There was no help forthcoming.

  “DODGE!”

  Unthinking, I threw myself sideways. I hadn’t even noticed that both assailants were up and closing on me. Consciously at least. If RIn had noticed, then some part of me had. Perhaps in the periphery? Annoyed at myself for letting myself be distracted, I sent a silent thanks to Rin and focused on making some space.

  Foxfire had already proven to not be enough. Perhaps there wasn’t enough Energy? Regardless, I needed something more decisive. The jet of water had created space, but it had only removed one person from the fight. There were two attacking me now and more just behind them. I scrambled away from another sword thrust and went through the spell forms we had learned. Or tried to. I was spending so much attention and power trying to dodge the swords that I couldn’t really think.

  ***BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM***

  The cannon’s clap ripping through the square was enough to stagger me for a moment. Thankfully the swordsmen attacking me were also staggered by the noise and I managed to recover first, working to quickly put as much distance between me and them as possible. By the time they recovered and chased after me, I had an idea forming.

  I didn’t know any large scale combat spells, they were well outside of my expected power and proficiencies. In fact, most of my spell forms had been focused on small effects to help me learn. But there was one that I had been taught that was designed to be used over a large area. It had started as a signalling effect, marking position and communicating between armies at a distance, designed to be seen across battlefields. However, given that there hadn’t been battles in Imardos for generations, the spell had taken on a more whimsical use.

  I still remember the day that Elder Junpei cast the spell directly in the air as part of the celebration for Elder Asami’s second tail. It had been so bright, cast from the top of the Refrectory I had watched it from my house and still my eyes stung.

  And, if it was that bright, visible, and disorienting at a distance, how painful would it be at sword range?

  I started to cast, and as I did, I fell into an almost meditative state of mind. I must’ve done these motions hundreds of times, so many that by now my hands practically moved by themselves. I had thought Elder Junpei’s constant training had been unnecessary at the time, but now I was grateful for the repetition. Unlike the last time I had gone through the motions for this spell, I could feel the Energy in me start to pool and form. It wasn’t ready, not yet, but I was able to regulate it to the back of my mind as my fingers automatically moved to continue the pooling and shaping, while I consciously focused on evading the swordsmen.

  There wasn’t a yell, but there was a panic in their eyes as they saw my hands move and heard the focusing incantations, and their swings grew more rapid. I moved backwards and to the side, dodging as many as I could while the spell continued to bloom.

  It wasn’t enough. One thrust, forcing me to the side where the second already had his sword moving. I couldn’t completely evade, but I managed to just twist enough that instead of slicing my leg, it turned into a nick.

  Instantly, I could feel the blood gush forth and the current of magic within me shift to follow the flow. I hadn’t finished the full incantation, empowering the spell for maximum effect, but If I didn’t let the spell go immediately, I risked losing the light entirely.

  Gathering my will, I stemmed the backflow of magic in my arms and tied the spell effect off. The two men were stepping forward, looking to follow up on the hit they had made bringing them directly into the flare releasing light.

  Even outside them the brilliant crimson and vibrant azure were enough to water the eyes, the light obscuring those inside for heartbeat. But once it had faded the two men were on the ground, swords dropped and forgotten as they held their hands to their eyes.

  “Effective.”

  Hopefully it would be enough. They were down for now, but eventually their eyes would clear and at that point they’d be back. But that was later. I quickly looked around for Kilik and found him and the person he had been fighting similarly clutching their eyes.

  Oops.

  “Three for one is still a decent trade.”

  I wasn’t sure of the math when we were outnumbered four to one, but I didn’t want to dwell on it for too long. Cecilia was still fighting and while Faith and Ignas had made some progress, no one was close enough to the cannon to stop their loading process. I was both the only person with both the range and freedom to try and stop them.

  “Sorry Kilik,” I murmured as I made my way towards the main mass and silently resolving to be more careful with my spells in the future. As I ran, I pulled magic again. There was bleed, both from the strain of trying to concentrate Energy again and from the literal bleed in my leg, but without having to try and dodge the energy pulled together faster.

  I let myself be briefly impressed with myself. When Elder Junpei had cast that spell, he had been reportedly exhausted for the evening. Here I was working on my third with only some bleed. But then I noticed the man with the cannon stuffing stick step away.

  Self-aggrandizement would have to wait.

  Without the pressure of two swordsmen bearing down on me, I was able to control the direction and spread of the lights better. I tried to keep it away from my fellow Starborn, but I wasn’t sure how much I succeeded. I closed my eyes in preparation and saw the flashes of color through my eyelids.

  Once I opened my eyes I found almost every one of the attackers was clutching their eyes. The speaker from earlier had managed to avoid the brunt of the effect somehow and my efforts to avoid Starborn left one of the fighters by Faith and Ignas standing, but without fellow warriors at his side, Faith’s spiked weapon quickly found purchase, crumpled him, and sent him to the ground leaving the shield bearer standing alone.

  Cecilia quietly drew her sword back into a defensive position. “Surrender,” she ordered the man.

  With a quick look around and a sigh, the man nodded and dropped his sword.

  Relieved, I collapsed to the ground, leaning against a nearby wall. Cecilia stood guard while Faith and Ignas quickly went about removing weapons from the reach of the blinded or otherwise incapacitated fighters, so that by the time they came to combat was well beyond the realm of possibility. It was impressive. We had been outnumbered, but besides my cuts and the blinding of Kilik, we seemed to come out of this affair largely unscathed.

  “And that,” Rin mildly commented, “Is why people are so adamant about attacking you first.”