Chapter 18

Kaolin

Chapter 18

     Sorcerers. Of course they were. The trees had warned us, after all, that Lymlock knew where we were going. He would have known our speed, location, and plans, and would have sent his sorcerers accordingly.

      This was going to be a hard battle.

      I shielded everybody without telling them. Maybelle knew, and looked at me in surprise, but didn’t comment. She knew what I knew, and we were going to need all the help we could get.

      Akeelay slipped her knife out of her sheath. Dossik shimmered into invisibility. Maybelle and I got ready to fight.

      The sorcerers were waiting, watching us arrive.

      “Let’s just keep going,” I whispered to the others. The sorcerers were still a fair distance away, but it seemed like a time to whisper. “We’ll probably have to fight, even if we try to avoid them.”

      They all nodded, except Dossik, but he was invisible, so he might have anyway.

      “We can do this,” Akeelay muttered. She was gripping her knife so hard I was surprised it didn’t break.

      And we stepped out to meet the sorcerers. More ran out from behind, trapping us in a circle, the moment we were close enough.

      Automatically, we formed a little circle of our own. Akeelay, Maybelle, and I stood back-to-back in a tight triangle.

      Dossik was nowhere to be seen, which was good. Probably.

      “Surrender,” said a sorcerer off to my left loudly, drawing all of our eyes. I didn’t recognize him, which meant he wasn’t in Lymlock’s original little band. It made sense. We were pretty far from the castle.

      “Never,” the three of us said in unison.

      “Where is the fourth member of your party?” demanded a different one.

      “I wish we were having a party,” Akeelay responded, laughing. “I’ll bring the cake.”

      I snickered. The sorcerers tightened their circle around us angrily.

      “This is not the time to make jokes.”

      The sorcerer who had told us to surrender, seemingly the leader, flicked his hand. The circle of magykans yelled, “Sensih!”

      I tried not to flinch as the spells headed our way. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. I knew Maybelle wouldn’t move either, but I whispered to Akeelay, “Don’t move!” I wanted them to think we knew exactly what we were doing.

      I wished.

      But anyway, she shot a quick glance at me and nodded. As the spells approached, I could tell by how tense she was she wanted so badly to duck or block it or something, but she stood still and tight.

      All of the unconsciousness spells bounced off our shield and went straight back to their casters. About a third of the 50 or so sorcerers didn’t move out of the way in time, and they went down.

      I didn’t know if they had a shield spell as well, but we were outnumbered either way. There were, I estimated, a dozen of them for every one of us (or 9 if Dossik was hanging around), and our chances didn’t look good. But we had beaten the odds before, so we would try.

      “Imorru,” I said, hoping the “leave” spell would work.

      Luckily, they didn’t have shield spells, or the one I aimed it at didn’t. But he managed to cancel the spell just before it reached him.

      Both sides had fired spells, but there was still a strange peace, like the calm before a storm. Peace wasn’t quite the right word, though. There was a kind of competition in the air. I didn’t know if anybody else could feel it, but to me it seemed like a battle of wills. Who would break down and truly start the fight first?

      It wasn’t us. After a few tensely silent moments, the lead sorcerer slowly nodded.

      “Go,” he said. And the sorcerers started their spells.

      I knew the spells wouldn’t do much good for a while. I had plenty of magyk left to hold all three of my shield spells, but I wouldn’t be able to keep them up forever.

      The sorcerers were firing spells around the circle, so it was like a wave of spells heading for us at any given moment.

      “We can do this, we can do this,” Akeelay repeated to herself. I don’t think she meant for us to hear, but my improved senses heard her nearly silent whispers.

      We waited. Maybelle and I cast a spell occasionally, but now they had shield spells up too, and we didn’t want them to rebound and hit us. I could feel my magyk draining slowly, and I waited for the right moment to release the spell.

      When I had about 55% of my magyk left, I whispered, barely moving my lips, “Get ready to fight.” Maybelle and Akeelay didn’t react, but I knew they had heard.

      The moment I had 50% left, I dropped the spell. We all acted as though nothing had changed, until a spell headed for Akeelay. The rotation of spells was aimed at her, and I cursed (nonmagykal kind) myself for letting that happen. I didn’t care how good she was at reflecting spells with her dagger, I didn’t like her being in danger.

      But she really was good with it, and didn’t have any trouble avoiding being hit by the spell.

      The lead sorcerer announced, in case anyone had missed it, “Their shield is down!”

      Maybelle and I attacked. “Do you want to knock them out, or have them leave, or what?” I asked her.

      “Leave will work,” she said, already shooting the yellow spell out. Spells have color, but only magykans can see them. It’ll identify the type of spell, and sometimes the strength. To humans and other non-magykans, the spells are invisible I don’t know how Akeelay did her reflecting without any idea of the spells heading for her, but maybe she just calculated the trajectory or something.

      I shouted, “Imorru!” over and over again, but I knew it couldn’t last forever. Eventually, someone would have to win. And I had to admit, the odds weren’t looking good for us.

      Dossik was in this, now, too. I still couldn’t see him, but he was knocking down sorcerers one by one.

      Whenever a sorcerer was hit by a leave spell, they would turn around and walk away, no longer participating in the fight. The spells only lasted for a while, though. There was a set amount of time, it wasn’t a held spell, but I didn’t want the fight to last that long.

      After a short while (maybe about 20 or 30 of your minutes?),  heard a distinct thump.  I worriedly glanced to where the sound had come from, seeing Akeelay lying on the ground. I gasped and redoubled my efforts. There were too many left, still about ten. For every spell I sent, they would be able to cancel most of them and send two or three back at me, which I would have to either dodge or cancel. I was getting tired.

      I kept going. My magyk was being depleted quickly. 10%, 9, 8... It hit 3% and my vision started to blur.

      Just before I ran out of magyk completely, my sight distorting all the sorcerers’ shapes into one big mass of color, I lost my balance and fell into unconsciousness. I was out, and it was up to Maybelle.

      The last thing I heard was another thump, and a loud, satisfied laugh.