Miras Last (12 page)

Galena stood at the front of their army with
Elenio and Morgo on one side, Tark and Taura on the other. The
other generals were placed strategically throughout the remaining
forces surrounded by those they trained. She felt sick at the
thought of what was to come, knowing this was just another step
toward Rau. Regardless of what she let the others think, she was
terrified with the idea of fighting the darkest creature in all of
Tomiro. She knew she had no other choice, but it didn’t help her to
feel less afraid.

She knew the elves killed several dark
creatures the last time. She, herself, had taken on several hundred
and destroyed all of them. However, when she looked at the readying
army before her, it seemed as if they hadn’t even put a dent in the
rolling mass of darkness.
How discouraging,
she thought.
To think there were more waiting for them at Blackwell,
including the vicious and frightening Tookoos.
She shuddered
involuntarily as she thought of those dreaded creatures. They made
the earagos seem tame in comparison.

Elenio reached for her hand, giving it a
comforting squeeze, sensing her thoughts and fears. She tried to
smile at him reassuringly, but only managed to pull off a grimace.
He, however, smiled at her efforts before turning back to look at
the growing mass of darkness in front of them. It seemed to swell
in size, doing nothing to calm Galena’s anxieties.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I get the
impression they’re trying to intimidate us,” Morgo said
sarcastically.

“If you’re referring to their looks, then
that’s not intimidation, they’ve always been that ugly,” Tark
replied, feigning a calm Galena knew none of them felt, but she had
to smile at his attempt at humor during this time. She saw Taura
roll her eyes and shake her head at her commitment partner’s
remark, making Galena’s smile widen even more. No matter what, she
would protect her family and friends with her every breath. She
couldn’t watch them die again. She wasn’t strong enough.

“What do you say about not giving them a
chance to attack first this time? Let’s give them a greeting
they’ll be sure to remember. Galena, would you mind giving Morak
the signal?” Tark asked, watching the dark creatures ahead of him
preparing themselves for battle by removing their blades and clubs
from around their waists.

Galena raised her hand and shot a column of
fire straight into the air. As they planned, a torrent of arrows
flew over the heads of the elves and into the crowd of dark
creatures, catching fire as soon as they encountered any flesh. The
result was a large number of the enemy front lines were now dancing
around in flames.

“Well, I think we got their attention,”
Elenio said, readying his sword as the enemy took the fire arrows
as the signal they should attack.

“Yep, that definitely did the trick,” Tark
answered back.

The first of the torlics came charging at
them, blades ready. It had an evil grin on his bright, red face,
his long, black hair streaming behind him like a flag, encouraging
others on.

Leaping into the air, Galena met him head on,
striking his blade with her own. The familiar energy of the sword
coursed through her body, giving her a rush like no other. The
torlic pulled his blade back and swinging around, he meant to cut
into Galena’s side, but she deflected the blow easily. She spun
around and aiming low, cutting deep into the monster’s leg. Like so
many other dark creatures that felt the kiss of the Sword of
Lumina, he burst into pieces, light replacing the dark. She turned
to meet another one as he swung his sword down and toward her head.
She blocked the blow and returned one, stabbing him in the belly,
and causing him to erupt into blinding light as well.

From the corner of her eye, she saw both Tark
and Taura handling an earagos, alternating swings until they
brought the giant to its knees where Tark landed the final blow.
She smiled while fending herself from three torlics and a narooks.
The narooks tried to wrap its fingers around her neck, but only
succeeded in losing his fingers before succumbing to the death the
Sword of Lumina held for every dark creature. She made quick work
of two of the torlics while Elenio dispatched of the third, causing
it to catch flame as his sword met the torlics skin.

“I really like having a sword with fire,” he
said grinning broadly.

“Let me know when you need a recharge,”
Galena shouted, while she took down one of the two dark creatures
for which she had no name. They reminded her somewhat of a cross
between a narooks and a torlic, with the wings of a Crag. Not a
very appealing mix in her mind.

Elenio swung around, burying his blade deep
into the side of a narooks before spinning around and cutting one
of the wings off the creature that Galena was fighting. Both
creatures caught fire before he turned around to assist Morgo with
an earagos he saw heading their way.

Galena turned to take on a rather small
earagos single-handedly. She jabbed her blade down, catching the
giant in the foot and destroying it with light. Tark was fighting
against a group of narooks while taura fought against two torlics,
both seemed to be holding their own. Galena noted they were covered
in blood, but none of it seemed to be theirs, rather it belonged to
the creatures with which they fought.

Galena turned to take in the condition of the
other elves surrounding them, flying off the ones who were lying on
the ground injured, in the general direction of Nigora’s tent.
She’d managed to land them safely when a group of torlics
surrounded her, thinking she was occupied.
Silly creatures,
she thought,
haven’t you learned anything?
She spun around
meeting blade after blade with her own sword. She swung out and the
wind took two of them, sent them high into the air and several
hundred feet away before they dropped on the ground in giant heaps.
Two more she struck with lightning, and while the others were
distracted, she swung her blade around burying it in the back of
one and the side of the other, both became pieces that were
scattered in the wind. She was about to engage several more dark
creatures when she heard a sound that caused her blood to turn to
ice in her veins.

“GALENA! HELP!” she heard Elenio shout from
somewhere behind her. Wasting no time with the creatures around
her, she set them all ablaze before she searched for Elenio. She
found him on the shoulders of a giant earagos. It was larger than
any of the earagos she’d seen so far. He was cutting at its back
with no effect on the giant creature whatsoever. Galena then looked
down and saw what was keeping the earagos so focused. Below him, on
the ground in a bloody heap, was Morgo. The earagos was hitting him
repeatedly with its giant club, making his body even more
unrecognizable.

“ELENIO, MOVE!” she shouted as she raced over
to him. Elenio jumped from the back of the creature and with a wave
of her hand, she sent the earagos flying into the air and into
another earagos some feet away. She watched as the culprit got
shakily to his feet, shaking his head as he did. She would deal
with him in a moment. She raced to Morgo’s side. His legs were at
an odd angle and he definitely shouldn’t have been able to bend
that way. His face was unrecognizable under the swelling and blood
that seemed to cover every inch of his once handsome features. He
had a large gap at the crown of his skull; his blade lay uselessly
beside him. Galena leaned her ear close to his face and was
surprised to hear a faint, raspy breath. It was shallow and almost
nonexistent, but it was there.

“I’ll take him to Nigora,” Fala said above
her.

“You hold him and I’ll fly you back. I don’t
trust myself to land him gently enough when he’s this bad. I’ll be
there as soon as I can. He is beyond what Nigora can do for him,”
Galena said darkly.

“We could all use a break at this point.
They’re driving us back. It’s almost like they’re stronger here
with the intunerics feeding them,” Tark said, panting heavily. He
had come over as well to fend off any attacking creatures with
Elenio and Taura while Galena had looked at Morgo.

Galena nodded her head and turned to
Fala.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

Fala scooped up the broken form of Morgo,
causing his head to roll in a revolting sort of way. Blood streamed
to the ground from gashes unseen, causing the already pale elf to
become deathly gray.

Galena had to choke back a sob at the broken
form of Morgo, unsure if she would ever see him alive again. “I’ll
be with you as soon as I can, just hang on,” she whispered into his
ear, unsure if he was past the point where he could no longer hear
her. Picking Fala and Morgo up with a gentle wind, she sent them
flying at a controlled speed until she was sure they were somewhere
near Nigora’s tent. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she turned back
and looked at the approaching enemy. They were indeed pushing the
elves back at an alarming speed. More elf bodies littered the
ground than those of the enemy, a sure sign they needed to
regroup.

“Time to put our plan into action,” Galena
shouted, more tears springing to her eyes, as it had been Morgo’s
plan originally. “Mira be with him,” she prayed quietly. Sending
another column of flames high into the air, all the elves began to
race toward the camp, grabbing their fallen comrades as they did.
The enemy started to give chase as well, but Galena discouraged
this with a couple well-aimed lightning bolts. When she saw all of
the elves had retreated toward their camp, Galena decided to use
the intunerics to their advantage. Using the wind to pick up every
stone within a mile of the elf camp, she lifted them into the air
and sent them flying into the enemy army. She heard the satisfying
sound of dull thuds and groans of pain resonate from within the
dark mass.
There you go, plenty of dark rocks to play with,
Galena thought grimly.

“Now, time to give us a little breathing
space,” she whispered aloud. Concentrating on the elf camp and all
the elves within that area, she sent a blazing, white-hot ring of
fire around her and everyone she loved. She caused the ring of fire
to grow higher and higher until even the tallest earagos could no
longer see over it. She waited to see if it would hold should any
of the dark creatures be foolish enough to try crossing the
barrier. They did not disappoint her. Several torlics and even more
narooks thought they would be able to race across the fire ring,
but Galena already thought they would try this and took measures
for just that occasion. As soon as the dark creatures touched the
flames, it burned even hotter and grew wider in response, causing
the dark creature to catch fire. The creature was not able to
return from which it came before falling to the ground, food for
the living barrier. More tears streamed down her face, Morgo’s idea
worked perfectly.

She caused the wind to lift her up high into
the air where she could see the enemy army above the fire. She saw
the earagos that had broken and possibly even killed her friend,
grin evilly at her. He seemed to realize how much damage he did and
reveled in his accomplishment. He even had enough nerve to wave at
Galena, rubbing in his victory. Galena’s blood boiled, and anger
filled her.
Think this is over do you,
she thought, her ears
ringing with the blood that so violently rushed through her.
“Wrong,” she whispered aloud.

A giant bolt of lightning, larger than
anything she caused so far, came racing to the ground and into the
head of the waving earagos, stopping him in mid wave. A smile still
frozen on his ugly face, he crashed to the ground, dead. “That was
for Morgo,” she said angrily. Turning, she sent herself flying
toward Nigora’s tent to see what had become of her friend and
mentor.

* * * *

Elenio grabbed a female elf with a deep cut
on her leg, but otherwise appeared to be fine. He knew they were to
grab any fallen elves on the way back to the camp as they were
instructed the day before, but he was in a hurry to see Morgo. It
had been his fault his friend was struck in the first place. Elenio
hadn’t been paying attention to anything around him as he delivered
the deathblow to the first earagos they met. So when he turned to
say something witty to Morgo, he was surprised to see another even
larger earagos standing over him, his club poised to strike.

Elenio had no time to prepare himself when
the giant beast’s arm started down. Elenio remembered feeling as if
he was flying when Morgo crashed into him, pushing him out of the
way, and putting himself into position to take the blow instead.
The club came down squarely on Morgo’s head, causing him to crumple
to the ground, unmoving. As if that hadn’t been enough, this
particular earagos seemed to have an incredibly vicious streak and
continued to beat the unconscious elf. That was when Elenio had
called out to Galena and jumped on the broad back of the evil
creature. Elenio thought, if he could just hurt the giant brute bad
enough, it would give up its assault on Morgo and turn his
attention to Elenio, who was in much better shape to defend
himself. Fortunately, that was when Galena showed up and at least
gotten the creature away from Morgo. Elenio was unsure what had
become of the earagos after Galena had sent him flying. He secretly
hoped he would have the chance to exact some revenge on the
brute.

Elenio drew near Nigora’s healing tent, his
heart sinking when he saw all the elves injured and in need of
attention. However, that was not the reason Elenio felt sick.
Blood, soaking into the ground around the entrance, covering the
tent flap, it was everywhere Elenio looked. He swallowed and then
lowered the female to the ground gently so he wouldn’t hurt her
further. She grimaced, but nodded her head in thanks before laying
back on the ground to await her turn with the healer.