25 -Eye of the Emperor

Rain lashed down on Pondra Field, a veritable storm that was growing more intense by the second. Magicka was flooding the region, feeding into the clouds high above and giving power to them. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled behind the bolts.

Lanten Basque flew high, rocketed along on a boulder positioned beneath his fight. His face was set in an angry grimace, thews straining beneath his robe. And behind him followed the Bloody Wight, his blazing claymore raised high.

At Lanten’s command a fleet of rocks tore from their moorings in the mud, lashing toward the Wight at such speeds that the air caught fire around them. The Wight bellowed, a savage animal sound, swinging his blazing blade and cleaving three of the boulders apart. But two struck their mark, kicking up great echoing booms and sending tides of earth high into the air.

The smoke cleared, the burning silhouette standing erect. Lanten moved fast, raising a great clod of earth that was roughly eight meters across. Then, eyes blazing with the primordial energies of magicka, the floating clod of mud glowed bright as it was transmutated into a solid mass of iron.

The boulder of iron rocketed through the air at his command, tenfold faster than a crossbow bolt, but the Wight was already stepping up to face it. Fire wreathed his claymore, shape changing from a blade to a great warhammer, and he swung it to meet the incoming boulder. The great clang echoed across the wartorn field, red hot fissures splitting and opening across the boulder.

It crumpled and exploded, a massive wound opening in the ground, and the Bloody Wight was flung a few meters back by the force of the magic blast. He flipped, deft and nimble despite his armoured bulk, and landed skidding on his heels. His cloak flapped behind him, the edges of it blazing with tongues of flame.

“Lanten,” he said, his voice like the growling of some foul demon. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”

“I’m just,” Lanten huffed, the weight of exertion sucking the air from his lungs, “getting started.”

Another wave of flame wreathed the Wight’s hammer, it’s shape changing into a monster of a crossbow with a blazing bolt nocked inside it. The thwang of the bowstring echoed across the battlefield, and the bolt crossed the distance like a blazing comet.

Earth moved at Lanten’s command, coils of mud rising and then shifting into a mass of solid stone, becoming a dense block that met the bolt head on. The impact kicked up a great explosion of flame, shattering the construct apart, and the wave of pressure in the air slammed into Lanten and sent him flying from his boulder perch.

Lanten was quick, for his age, and a shelf of mud rose up to catch and embrace him. Or, at least, to slow his rapid descent. And already the Wight was bearing down on him, the blaze of chaos igniting every plate of his armour. He had the claymore in his grasp again, his preferred weapon of choice. Its mere presence carried with it the stink of scorched ozone.

The wizard was quick, frantic, and summoned up a hardened fist of soil and stone to erupt from the earth. It slammed into the Wight’s side and launched him away. An instant later and his armoured bulk slammed into the hill that overlooked Pondra’s Field, obliterating the entire landmass in a cataclysmic bang, kicking up a quake that could well have flattened a city.

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Lanten rose shakily to his feet, his heart thudding and his muscles aching. How long had they been fighting? Hours? Days? Years? Sweat was pouring from his brow in great droplets. Magic was a costly thing, even for a man who had spent years honing and cultivating the art.

He was no stranger to battles, there were times where he’d fought other wizards for hours at a time. And yet this was far more strenuous. The Wight was as invincible as his peers feared him to be. At least with other battles he could sense his opponents tiring too, could feel his magic having effect on them.

But the Wight did not slow, did not tire. Had he miscalculated his strength this severely?

No… no, Lanten told himself. Nobody was invincible. No undead revenant was indestructible.

He straightened his posture and squared his shoulders, just as the burning madman came charging from the crater that had once been a hill. Lanten took a breath and willed the earth to rise.