Samual (6 page)

For some reason the rats stopped briefly in their advance when they approached the clearing and spotted him. After a moment's thought he even knew why. He could feel it coming from them. Confusion. They had never before seen their prey standing still before them and waiting. Normally they either jumped on their prey while it was unaware of them or they chased it. This was different. They didn't know what to do. So they asked.

Sam couldn't have explained how they asked. Couldn't even have described the manner in which they spoke, or who they spoke to. But he heard them sending their question back to their master so far away, and he heard the response just as clearly. Kill! As if there should ever have been any doubt.

No sooner had they been given their orders then the first dozen or so of the steel rats charged at him like rampaging lions, attempting to cover a distance of a full hundred and fifty or more yards of open land as quickly as possible. It was a mistake.

Sam lowered the sword until it pointed directly at them, and with a simple command a blast of magic streamed from it, like a scythe made out of fire. It hit the first of the rats dead on, slicing them in flaming halves. The golems exploded as though they were filled with gunpowder and the steel fragments fell everywhere. The sight filled him with relief as well as satisfaction. It was a good sign. It meant that as strong as the rats were, they were also vulnerable, something he hadn't truly been sure of until just then. It could only be because they too were imbued with too much magic. Once their form or their function was altered even a little, it became unstable, and they exploded. That was a weakness which could be exploited.

The rats either didn't seem to understand that, or if they did then they didn't care. A second pack of the rats charged directly over the bodies of their former pack mates, only to meet a similar fate. A heartbeat later they were followed by a third. The golems it seemed weren't bright – but they were obedient.

All up at least a hundred steel rats surrendered their insides to the fire scythe spell before somewhere a halt was called. Their master, having sensed something of their sudden unexpected losses, stopped them before they could lose the rest. Obviously he could see something through their glowing red eyes. Enough at least to see the problem and form a plan.

Realising that his army was facing a wizard, and probably guessing he was using some form of scything spell, the golem master reasoned that Sam wouldn't be able to get all of them if they came in small groups of three or four each, from all directions at once. He was right too. The scythe spell couldn't handle such an attack very well. But then Sam had expected that the rats would learn from their mistakes. It was just a pity he hadn't got more of them before they'd changed tactics. The sword still had at least half of the fire magic spell raging within it.

As he felt the rats circling the clearing, gathering into their groups and preparing for the order to attack Sam sheathed the greatsword and raised his battle-axe high above his head. Did the rat master guess his intentions? Sam didn't know. But what he did know was that it was already too late as he saw the first of the rats entering the clearing and knew it was time. Even before the rats had been given the order to attack, he released all of the fire magic that he'd stored in the axe in a single glorious strike, and watched with satisfaction as a fire storm appeared somewhere over his head.

A spinning, screaming ball of fire, it spat out bolts of liquid fire in every direction, like a thousand insane archers with flaming arrows. Yet each of those bolts found its way unerringly to its target and at least fifty more rats went up in flames in the forest in a single stroke. Even Sam was impressed by the potency of the enchantment. Never before had he seen the spell work so effectively. His enemy no doubt wasn't so pleased.

A hundred and fifty odd golems destroyed in only a matter of moments by a single human. All that work and magic that had gone into making them; lost. Sam could almost hear the scream of rage that came from the rats' master so far away, and he tried not to smile too much. At least not yet. The battle was far from over.

Then his enemy showed his inexperience in battle. Angered beyond reason the master brought out all his remaining rats, at least another three or four hundred and tried a mass attack. He was trying to overload the power of the fireball spell with sheer numbers. He needn't have worried about it. Sam had used every last ounce of fire magic in the axe in that one blast. He'd had to to kill so many steel rats at once from such a distance. But he wasn't worried. Not by the golems anyway. Not when he'd already seen the results of his opening attacks and felt his new found power.

Even as he watched the rats streaming towards him like a sprawling river of steel teeth, red eyes and claws, Sam sheathed his battle-axe beside his sword, and raised his arms above his head instead. It was time to see if the fire ring could do as much damage as his studies had told him it could. Once five thousand or more years ago before the Dragon Wars, fire rings had been considered among the most powerful of all a wizard's attacks. But the devastating losses of people from it and other such magics had been terrible. According to some it was these very magic shapes that had helped bring the Dragon to power and ultimately nearly destroyed the world.

The Dragon Wars had brought the ancient world to an end. Empires and realms had been shattered. Lands had been destroyed.  According to some even the ancients themselves had been broken. Because once they had been one people. After the wars they had evolved into many different races. All that was left of those ancient times were scraps of knowledge, legends and ancient artefacts. The fire ring was one of those scraps of ancient knowledge that had survived. One he had studied carefully.

Properly used it was supposed to be able to destroy an army. Improperly used of course, it would destroy him. Concentrating furiously on holding all that raging energy coursing through his hands together while trying to shape the final form, Sam brought his hands ever so slowly and smoothly together. His timing was perfect.

When the closest of the rats was less than fifty yards from him, his palms touched, and a screaming fire breathing monster broke free within him. Suddenly he had to hang on for dear life as something more powerful and wild than he had ever imagined possible ripped loose from his body and coalesced just over his head and all around him.

The forces involved – the heat and the light – were almost unbearable as the fire ring screamed its way free of him. It started to spin violently and briefly Sam had to shut his eyes to keep from going blind. He panicked a little. But only for an instant. It was far too important to keep his concentration so that the flow of magic into the spell was smooth and even. To give in to fear was to die. He could not give up his own life fire in the process. And to allow himself to give in to the spectacle or the pain was to do just that. That was the true danger in wizardry. That in giving of his essence to bind the magic to him, the wizard would release his life force with the spell. More than a few spell casters had died trying to use a spell far too powerful for them.

But not this wizard. And not this day. Sam held on for dear life and felt the magic leave him cleanly.

A heart beat or a thousand hours later his battle with the spell was over and Sam watched with immense relief and awe as a living circle of fire spread out from him in all directions, as fast as an arrow could fly. It was like a ripple in a pond spreading out after a stone had been cast. But this ripple came from the very depths of the underworld itself; an inferno of rage as it ripped away from him like a demon released.

The rats didn't stand a chance, but neither did they care. Even through the rapidly departing fire wall he could see their steel faces and red eyes as they continued to charge at him, stupidly running directly into the oncoming fire. But only until the two touched. Then the rats exploded. Hundreds of glorious explosions that looked like cannon fire.

In mere heartbeats the battle was over, the rat army had been completely vanquished without a single survivor, and Sam knew a moment of complete triumph. But only a moment as that feeling quickly turned to one of shock and horror. The fire ring was even more powerful than he'd guessed, and more than it needed to be; far more. Sam watched with horror and awe as it reached the end of the clearing and then just kept advancing on through the forest. A raging juggernaut of savage and yet strangely beautiful destruction.

The effect as it hit the nearby still frozen trees was staggering, as they too exploded with enough force to make the ground shake, before raining smouldering sap and bark everywhere. But at least they didn't catch fire. Further on out most of the trees did, exploding into fifty or a hundred foot high fire balls that turned the sky orange, and unleashed thunderclaps that shook the ground in all directions. And all the while the wall of fire that was the ring's edge just kept travelling further and further away from him.

Finally, perhaps only a dozen beats of a frightened heart after it had begun its insane rampage, Sam watched the fire ring disintegrate, turning into brief flashes of glorious light and thunder before disappearing up into the sky like ascending angels streaking for heaven itself. But they were no angels. Nor were they demons either. They were the remnants of something far more powerful. In that short span of time the fire ring had done more damage than any dozen hurricanes.

Left behind in the clearing where he stood and for half a league of forest in every direction lay a scene of utter destruction. In the distance trees, pines, oaks and even great redwoods stood broken. Many had been smashed into kindling. Many more were sending up clouds of black smoke, as the wet sap tried to catch fire, while others had become raging bonfires. Nearer to the clearing many of the once proud trees were little more than stumps in the ground, while their blackened branches had formed into piles of debris scattered like fallen leaves around them.

For the longest time Sam simply stared at the carnage around him, stunned at how much damage he'd wrought, and wondering how he could have created something so terrible. What he had just released had to be a dozen, perhaps a hundred times more powerful than anything he'd ever done in his life. It was much more than he'd intended. More than he'd even known was possible. In fact there was only one word for what he had wrought; devastation. It would be years if not decades before the forest recovered from his magic. He also wondered if the elves would ever forgive him for destroying one of their forests.

Where had the power come from? As he sat there on Tyla's back staring, that question echoed through his mind. Because what he had done, wasn't just more than anything he'd ever been able to do before. He suspected it was more than any mere wizard could do. More surely than even a master could achieve.

Yet at the same time as he sat there staring in awe, there was also a feeling of savage pride and triumph running through him. After all, there were no rats remaining. Not a single one had survived the fire ring. Five hundred, six hundred – perhaps even more – golems had been turned to scrap metal in a single blast and the first wave of the enemy's attack had been destroyed in a single battle. The next wave, if it had yet been formed, wasn't even on the horizon. He had just won a major victory for the elves. Maybe the elves would take that into consideration if they ever thought about judging his actions.

Though it was wrong, there was also a certain feeling of satisfaction running through him as he surveyed the carnage all around him, and discovered his true strength. No longer could he regard himself as a student. Power on this scale, though its effects might have been terrible, could only be found in a master. Despite the endless pain and suffering he'd felt as he'd struggled to learn the spells and to carry every more fire within him, this here was proof that he had reached a new level. Mastery.

The satisfaction of having destroyed an enemy, and of having finally found such incredible power after so many years of trying was a wonder to him. But it was more than that. It was hope. Looking around and seeing all he had wrought he knew he had finally found all the power he needed to rescue Ry. He could level her prison, the keep and everything around it should he choose and his brother and his armies could do nothing to stop him. It was now only a question of tactics.

Once he had thought his strength in reclaiming her would be as that of a soldier, with the might of steel to be his anchor, and magic as an aid in the fight. Now he realised, his magic had become far more powerful than any steel could ever be, and it was a good feeling. He knew finally that not only could he do it, but that none could stand against him. The time to reclaim his wife from her prison and punish his half-brother for his evil was upon him. Very soon his life would be whole once more and he could barely contain the excitement at the thought. Soon Ryshal would be back in his arms.