Hemlock And The Wizard Tower (Book 1) (42 page)

The Tanna
Varran
s around her looked excited, but unsure about the creature
that they now beheld.

"Press the advant
age!
 
Attack!" cried Hemlock.

Tanna
Varran
commanders
soon
joined
Hemlock
in the outcry
to attack
, and
within moments
the Tanna
Varran fighters
were moving forward and crashing into the enemy positions in
front of them.

Hemlock returned her attention to the creature that had been Gwineval.
 
She saw that it had scooped up some Tanna
Varran
warriors and eviscerated them in its mammo
th jaws!
 

Alarmed, Hemlock began to run toward the creature, unsure what she would do when she arrived in its vicinity
, but feeling a need to act.

But the
wizards
across the battlefield
solved her problem for her.
 
Not noticing that
the great green beast
had turned on its own
troops
, the
wizards
redirected all of their magica
l attacks against it.

They did not use fire any longer, but pale green beams which emanated from each Harvester and bathed t
he creature with a pale aura.

The creature cried out in an
guish and began to shrink.

Hemlock halted in her tracks
again
as she saw the beast surging with
a suffering rage
and turning
its attention to
the nearest Harvester.
 
With an inhuman gait, it charged and bowled into the huge iron figure, impacting it
s iron torso
with its scaled head.

The Harvester reeled as it absorbed the shock of the impact from the lizard creature
, and began to fall backward
.
 

The Harvester
crew
tried to maintain
its
balance, but failed
to do so despite a crude outstretch of the figure’s massive iron arms
.
 
It fell backward onto the valley floor as the
monstrous incarnation of Gwineval
continued
its charge
, climbing up onto the prone torso of the Harvester
and stomping down on it with it
s great muscled legs.
Wizards
were fleeing from the head as the
huge lizard
continued to pummel the
inert figure of the
disabled Harvester.

Hemlock had seen many wonders over the past days, but seeing what Gwineval had become
was the most intense and
scared her profoundly.
 
This
l
izard creature was violently destructive and seemed chaotic.
 
The
mind of Gwineval had
obviously
been consumed by the ferocious rage of the
reptile
.
 
She hoped that it was only temporary.
 
What if it turned on the Tanna
Varran
s again?
 
She had to hope that the
wizards
would continue to attack
it.

And t
hey did.

Green beams from the remaining Harvesters
continued to bathe the creature in an unnatural light.
 
It seemed to spasm from time to time, shrinking in pain, and then growing again as if fueled by its rage.

Screaming, the creature turned its attention to the
second Harvester which was positioned near it.

Hemlock
looked away from the spectacle and
noticed that the Tanna
Varran
s
before her
were starting
to gain the upper hand on the First C
ircle Wizard
foot soldiers and City Knights.

There was a great crash from the center of the Tanna
Varran
battle line then.
 
Hemlock could not fully see what was happening, but soon she was able to discern City lances and pennants above the heads of the Tanna
Varran
s.
 
"The
wizards
must have committed the mounted Knights from their reserves
,
" she
concluded.

She began to jog toward the center of the lines when she saw two companies of Tanna
Varran
winged Lancers pass overhead toward
the City Knights
.
 
Hemlock realized that
Tored and Taros Ranvok must have been holding their own rese
rves back to counter this move.

H
emlock congratulated them on their successful planning in her mind
.

A cry
from a runner sprinting toward the line
caught Hemlock's attention from behind in
the direction of the
Tanna Varran
Town
.
"Tored is wounded
!
" he cried.
 

As Hemlock
digested the import of
these words,
she remembered that an entirely different battle was playing out on the plains behind her.  The Witch and her horde were apparently faring better against the Tanna Varrans than the wizards were.  S
he knew
that Tored was a critical part of their front against the Witch and she knew what she had to do.

The Tanna Varrans will never hold off the Witch without Tored.  Gwineval, or whatever he’s become, will have to hold off the wizards for now
, she concluded.

Activating her
Tanna Varran
wings, she soared into the air, dodging an arc of magical fire cast at her from one of the
nearby Harvesters.  Continuing to climb
into the air,
she saw the Tanna
Varran t
own partially engulfed in flames, with civilian
teams
engaged in
their own battle with the fire.

O
n a bluff
below the Town, Hemlock
saw a sight that almost made her lose control
of her wings.  She saw Safreon
standing before a great l
attice of blue magical tendrils
which
emanated from the Wand of the Imperator, which he strained to hold before him. 
Within the blue tendrils
struggled a chaotic form
that Hemlock could not compare to anything
that
she had ever seen.  It was a great m
ass of hideous eyes and mouths
mounted
on
drippin
g tendrils of flesh, which seemed
to be constantly morphing and undulating. 

Hemlock could tell that Safreon was straining mightily to control the
demon
.
  She knew that he was using the Wand of the Imperator to leech magical power from the demon in order to add this power to Gwineval’s spell.

What would happen if that thing got loose?

Her instinct was
to descend and help Safreon, but
she
was
restrained
by the knowledge that she was not a spell caster.  She simply didn’t think that she would be able to lend
him
aid. 

"
If Tored has fallen, then I must face the Witch
,"
she realized,
and
a great
weight
of responsibility
seemed to fully rest upon her spirit
.  She remembered the words of the Tanna
Varran
warrior in the meeting hall, during the rally given by Taros Ranvok. 
"Kill the witch," she had heard the warrior say to her.  She resolved to do just that.

Reluctantly, she focused her attention away from Safreon.

On the other side of the T
own, she behe
ld the full extent of the Witch’
s forces, which
were
hurling themselves
against the Tanna
Varran
lines
like a band of lunatics. 

T
he
Tanna Varrans were
holding
out despite the desperate onslaught.

Three of the great
flying
Mathi creatures circled above the battlefield, occasionally breathing fire on the Tanna
Varran
s below, but more often fending off a steady stream of flying Tanna
Varran
lancers.
 
One of the Mathi already appeared to
be seriously wounded,
though Hemlock
saw more than one Lancer plumme
t to their death
as they fought the flying beasts.

Hemlock
looked below and
could see a concentration
of insubstantial warriors surrounding
a ghostly figure which glowed
with a fell light
.
 
He
ading for these apparitions
, Hemlock could soon discern the pale figure of the Witch, which she had seen on that dark night a fort
night ago.

Hemlock landed near to the Witch and as she did so, she
was immediately engaged by a ghostly
swordsman which was
adorned in palatial finery and wielded
beautifully
ornamental weapons.
 

The creature was quick, but Hemlock was able to dispatch it after drawing it in with several parries.
  She noted that the Tanna Varran enchantment of her sabres was proving to be quite effective against the Witch’s minions.  This magic made the ghosts almost as vulnerable to her sabres as if they had been composed of flesh and blood.  When the blades hit them, they seemed to sap their strength and a strong hit caused them to fade away with a cry.

Hemlock
soon
spotted Tored
,
lying on the ground
about thirty yards away.  He was
surrounded by several
of his honor guard,
who were holding o
ff a furious assault from ghostly warriors
like
the one that Hemlock had just faced.

She had been told that the ghostly guardians that stayed closest to the Witch were the most powerful.

Hemlock
jogged toward Tored
, but was cut
off by another pair of the
regal
, but
capable ghost fighters
.
 

Using their insubstantial blades, this pair of spirits engaged Hemlock with a level of ferocity that caught her off guard.

When she parried their blows with her sabres, there was real force behind them, but the force was delivered slightly after the insubstantial swords had already been withdrawn.

Hemlock had to adjust her fighting style slightly to account for this delay.

The two spirits used an odd tandem fighting style, vaulting off of one another and playing off of each other’s attacks and parries in perfect unison.

If I wasn’t wielding two sabres, this might be too much for me
, she considered abstractly as she fought.

After some minutes of intense fighting, Hemlock was beginning to tire slightly.  She wondered if the spirits could tire, as she perceived a possible new tactic.

I can’t find an opening to concentrate on either one of them: they are too coordinated.  I’ll have to surprise them.

Hemlock waited until one of the sprits had thrown its counterpart into a twirling attack, which, once blocked by Hemlock, left the two spirits standing abreast of one another.

Hemlock paused and then used all of her energy to draw back, and in a near instant motion that might have been difficult for an average mortal to even detect, both of her sabres left her outstretched arms, hurtling unerringly at the throats of the spirits.

In the space of time that the strange echo between the spirit and mortal realms that Hemlock had perceived might have consumed, the two sabres impacted both spirits in the upper chest, just below the neck.

Their mouths contorted in rage and their arms flew to their necks, but it was too late for them.  They fell backward and faded from view, and Hemlock rushed forward to retrieve her sabres, which had been lodged in their fading forms and now rested with handles in the air, embedded in the soft earth.