Chapter 21 – Extermination

They were, Mirian knew, fucked. Even if they did want to rely on ‘we’re innocent, don’t shoot us,’ which the Akanans clearly didn’t give a bog lion’s ass about, they’d just become a major target.

“Tell them to retreat somewhere else!” someone shouted.

I’m going to die again, Mirian realized. Nicolus must have known. Who else had known? And how had they found out? It hadn’t been through her, because Nicolus had done the same thing the first time. He’d left the exact same day.

On one hand, he was a piece of shit. On the other hand, she sort of got it. She’d tried to save everyone. What had that gotten her?

Mirian stood. “Let’s clear the hill!” she shouted. “Who’s with me?”

She did not get the rancorous cheer she was hoping for. But she did get a few people.

Someone she didn’t recognize tried to stop her. “Don’t get yourself killed. We’re safer sticking together here,” he said.

“They will absolutely kill us all,” she told him. “But you do what you want.”

“I’m not going to let more people get killed,” he said, and held out his hand.

Mirian drew her spellrod. Her voice turned cold and she fixed him with a penetrating stare. “Get out of my way,” she said flatly.

The man backed away.

“Let’s go,” she said. Mirian noticed only Lily and Xipuatl were following her. “Selesia! Come on. We still have a chance.”

“I can’t,” she complained.

“You can.”

Mirian went and knelt in front of her. “Selesia, the first time this happened, we didn’t meet. This time, I fixed that. Don’t give up yet. I still owe you… I owe you a date. Duels lesson and dinner, yeah?”

There, she’d said it.

That just made Selesia burst into tears, and Mirian felt this wretched feeling. She couldn’t stand it. She took Selesia’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go. Together.”

Selesia wiped her face, and nodded.

The gunfire was getting closer. Flashes of light now flickered on the underside of the low-lying clouds. As they began to summit the hill, those flashes illuminated the tops of the trees. North of them, they could see fires burning and lighting spells dancing.

About a dozen of them had decided to keep going. Maybe more would have joined, but by now there was a big press on the road as the crowds had piled up. People south on the road were just shouting at each other, but north, she could hear the raised voices of panic setting in.

Mirian didn’t recognize most of the people with them. Everyone was wearing their cloaks because of the night chill, and the light spells weren’t doing much to properly reveal faces. It was hard enough keeping track of her people. Surprisingly, Valen had made her way to the front.

“Valen!” she said. She was still a jerk, but she was a familiar jerk. “Guess hell didn’t want you?”

“Yeah. Gods-touched, huh?” she said, and spun her finger around her ear.

A few other students had joined them, as well as townsfolk. Three people had farming implements they were holding like polearms. One of them had a sword, though even in the glyph lights it looked about equal parts rust and steel.

The ice on the hill was treacherous. “Here,” Valen said, and cast a spell that created tiny force spikes on the bottom of their boots. That helped with traction a bit.

“Up ahead,” Lily said. It was her light spell leading the way. Sure enough, there was a loud clicking and chittering noise up ahead. Mirian could just make out the dark forms of the frost scarabites. Gods, they were huge!

Xipuatl said, “They don’t have these down south. What are they weak to?”

Valen said, “Blunt force. You’d think it’s fire, but no, they just ignore the stuff, or if it’s annoying them, they breathe ice on your fire spell and fizzle it. Target their tiny faces. You can also use blades to cut off the antennae. And poke out their eyes.”

“Well someone was paying attention in Viridian’s classes,” Mirian muttered. Louder, she said, “I have a cutting blade spell. I’ll try to hit them with it. And a force shield spell, to protect us from the frost breath.” She clicked the button on her spellrod to put it into combat mode.