Eighth Fire (35 page)

Back near the corrals two thralls obviously made
from the sands of the school yard began running at Tim and Steve
with their glass scimitars poised to strike. Tim’s blade flashed
through their necks and both ghouls collapsed into piles of sand at
their feet. That’s when Tim noticed Steve. “You are not supposed to
be here! Grab on; I will take you back.”

“I’m a Marine!”

“You quit.”

“Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

The grounds were quickly becoming populated with
more thralls and more Magi. Steve ducked and barely missed being
cut by a thrall’s blade just before Tim dispatched it. Steve said,
“I need a weapon.”

Tim produced a shorter version of the sword he
had and handed it to Steve. “Be careful, it is sharp. You have to
take their heads off to kill them.” Tim turned and began
dispatching thralls almost as they appeared.

Steve saw a bit of motion out of the corner of
his eye and turned just in time to block a blow from a thrall. The
force of the impact knocked him back a step, but he recovered and
was able to sever the thrall’s sword arm halfway between the wrist
and elbow then spun as he had seen Mark do. Before the creature’s
head hit the ground he saw another one attacking from his left.

Mark, Nick, Jamal, Chenoa and LeOmi along with a
few others let go of Cynthia after she remanifested them near the
base of
the sunstone
pedestal. The clash
of sword on sword was loud; roughly two hundred Magi were defending
against what looked like an all-out thrall attack. Several Magi
were down. Mr. Müeller was lying on his back not ten yards away,
rocking back and forth while holding his stomach in his hands,
blood oozing through his fingers. Blood stained the sand beneath
several other fallen Magi lying nearby. LeOmi blocked a blow that
surely would have taken Mark’s head had she not reacted in time.
She back-slashed and took the attacking thrall’s head instead. Mark
drew his sword; his head pounded; the nearby wounded needed his
help but could healing the fallen wait while he joined the
fray?

Roughly twenty black robed, hooded figures were
scrambling up the sand piled around the pedestal of
the sunstone
. The sand around the pedestal was almost
high enough for anyone to reach
the
sunstone
and lines of thralls continued to disintegrate
one-by-one at the top of the pile causing the pile to grow ever
taller. Mark yelled, “They’re stealing
the
sunstone
!”

Steve ducked one thrall’s blow while
simultaneously kicking another in the midsection forcing it to
topple over the nearby corral fence. He straightened and turned to
face his other opponent. He caught a glimpse of long blond hair and
a blur of arms as they wielded weapons to its neck severing its
head. The creature’s body collapsed into a pile of sand revealing
the warrior behind. She was wielding a pair of hand scythes and
quickly crossed her arms in an attack posture in front of her
toward Steve. Her eyes were narrow, her countenance fierce and for
a brief moment Steve didn’t recognize her. When he did he could
hardly believe what he was seeing. “Shirley?”

Shirley lunged forward and for a moment Steve
thought she was coming at him. He side stepped and with a flurry
she took the sword hand and decapitated the attacking thrall
swinging its sword toward her husband. Without looking back she was
onto the next thrall and Steve’s eyes were forced from her by a
trio of thralls running straight for him.

Mark turned to the group nearest him. “Jamal,
Chenoa, get a team up there and stop them!” He pointed to the group
climbing toward
the sunstone
. “LeOmi and I
are rescuers. We have to tend the wounded. Cynthia, you and a
couple of others cover LeOmi; Nick, you pick two more and cover me.
Let’s go!”

Mark started running toward Mr. Müeller,
returned his sword to Aaron’s Grasp and took out the healing oil
from his pocket. By the time he reached the fallen Magi he already
had a drop of the oil on his finger. He rubbed it across Mr.
Müeller’s forehead and said, “Healing oil; you’re going to fall
asleep for awhile. When you wake up you’ll be okay.”

Mark scratched a large check mark in the sand
next to Mr. Müeller marking him as already treated. He was very
glad that he didn’t have to place an ‘x’ next to his body. He
turned to see where LeOmi was so he wouldn’t waste time covering
ground she’d already covered before running to the next wounded
Magi. A loud rumble from the direction of the school sounded. He
looked up and saw a large cloud of dust rising into the air.
Someone off to the side yelled, “They’ve got it!” He turned and
looked where the sunstone used to be. The hooded figures were gone
too. All of a sudden every thrall he could see, hundreds of them
all around, just disintegrated. The sudden silence after such a
great clamor was unnerving. He scanned for any more threat of
danger and seeing none called out, “This fight’s over. Get back to
the school; they probably need our help.”

Jogging beside Mark, Nick said, “I’m staying
with you.”

“Nick, the fight is over. You’ll be more help at
the school.”

“I’m not leaving your side.”

“No time to argue.” Mark knelt and put a drop of
healing oil on the next victim.

The explosion sent debris flying out of all
exterior doors on the first level of the school. Steve flinched
from the blast, and didn’t recover in time to block a thrall’s
blade, the tip of which slashed him across the chest deep enough to
bleed a lot, but not deep enough to have caused any major damage.
He took its head with a back swing. He stepped back and did a
quarter turn to the right to face his next opponent and it just
crumbled into a pile of sand. He looked around and saw all the
thralls were now just piles of sand.

He collapsed to his knees and before he could
fall over Tim grabbed his shoulder and said, “Looks like you need
to go to the healing ward. Grab my arm.”

Breathing hard and fast Steve asked, “Shirley,
where’s Shirley?”

“She is all right, but you are not. You have
lost a lot of blood and we need to get it staunched. Grab my
arm.”

Steve nodded and grabbed Tim’s arm. Instantly
they were on the second floor balcony just outside the healing
ward. Tim scooped him up and carried him inside. He said loudly,
“Got a bleeder here. Chest wound, superficial, but he has lost a
lot of blood.”

A white robed healer walked quickly toward them
and said, “Put him on the bed,” indicating a bed near them.

“There are a lot more coming. You are going to
need more help.”

She answered, “I’ve already sounded the
emergency alarm. I’ll have help in just a few minutes.”

Another Magi carrying someone came through the
balcony door. “Five inch puncture wound, mid-abdomen, all the way
through by a sword.” Two healers walked in behind him.

The first healer indicated another bed and said
to the newly arrived healers, “There’s been a battle and we’re
expecting a large number of sharp force traumas.” She pointed at
Steve and the other patient, “Get busy on these two and roll them
farther in. I’ll get more beds closer to the door.”

Tim walked back out to the balcony just as more
healers were arriving.

Most of the seriously wounded were students, but
none had been killed. Steve was up and about looking around in the
chaos of the healing ward for his wife. He had been taken care of
straight away since he had managed to keep his wound clean. Others
would have to have their wounds cleaned before being healed
otherwise the body would heal around the foreign material which in
most cases required later surgery to remove the extraneous
stuff.

Steve could not find Shirley but he did come
across Mrs. Shadowitz. “Ma’am, do you happen to know where my wife
is?”

Mrs. Shadowitz’s mind was obviously preoccupied
with the recent events. She looked at Steve with a vacant stare
before focusing on him. “I beg your pardon; what did you just
say?”

“Do you know where Shirley Young is?”

“I believe Jeremy took her to guest
quarters.”

“Ma’am...I saw her fighting on the field. She’s
obviously had some training. Do you know anything about that?”

“We’re in the way here. I’ll walk with you to
the dorm.”

Once they were in the hall Mrs. Shadowitz began,
“I don’t know which is going to be more painful: me telling or you
hearing what you don’t know about your wife and why she is the way
she is.”

Steve stopped walking and looked puzzled. “What
do you mean, ‘the way she is’?”

She nodded her head sideways indicating that he
should continue walking with her and she continued speaking in a
low voice. “Shirley was in her first junior year when it
happened.”

“First junior year! You mean my wife was a
Magi?”

“Yes, she was a Magi student here at The Seventh
Mountain, very gifted in many areas.” The hall was lined on both
sides with paintings and sculptures. Mrs. Shadowitz walked to a
glass sculpture of a golden palomino standing on a pedestal and
turned to look at Steve. He looked at it and then back at Mrs.
Shadowitz. She pointed at the green lettered plaque:

Shirley Torre

Glass Sculpture 7,903,751

“She would have been a great asset had she
finished her training and she loved it here. Tim, Gerod and Shana
were her best friends. Tim was particularly fond of her and I
suspect he would have given you a run for your money in courting
her. I didn’t realize how much he cared for her until
after...after...” Her voice faltered. She turned away and wiped
tears from her eyes.

Steve put his hand on her shoulder and gently
squeezed. “It can’t be that bad; after all, she’s alive and
well.”