Sorcerer in a fantasy world
Chapter 112: End

Chapter 112: Chapter 112: End

Umbra saw Damian fall.

Twice fallen, and because of her, he would be twice saved.

She called on her broom to fly to him. Only to have it chopped in half, but the swing of a clan warrior. A traitor.

Her broom snapped, but the axe’s edge kept on swinging and bit into her side. She screamed from the pain, but her sorcery enchanted body would not die so easily. She screamed from surprise as much as pain, he must have some innate, unrealised, magical talent to be able to counter Damian’s enchantments.

She thrust out her hand and bathed his open mouth in deadly, excruciating poison. The agonising pain hit him in an instant. He lost the strength to pull his axe back out of her side. Instead, he clung to his skin as blood leaked out every possible hole in his body including streaming out of his eyes. In less than a minute he lay dead.

She pulled out the axe and healed her open wound with a flick of her wrist.

She looked at his corpse and knew the clan warrior. She healed him two nights before from mortal wounds. Now he allied with the very Romans who nearly killed him. His loyalty to his clan, and pawn to its politics, had outweighed the moral debt he’d owed her. Damian would never do such an act of cruelty. He was genuinely kind, if a bit of a slut, a manwhore who had yet to say no to any pretty women who’d offered to fuck him. As that included her and mind blowing sex, she let it go barely within a storm of jealousy.

Her broom shattered, she’d have to run to his side.

Then, just as she tensed her muscles to sprint, she saw a flood of horseflesh and glinting steel on the horizon. Barrelling down the wide open roads of the White City, the riders of Elkilbour charged.

At first, Umbra thought they’d come to their aid. She remembered Damian and Morgana talking with them from before they had come to this terrible place. The evil eye, sealed as it was, let her in on the secret. It delighted in her suffering.

Traitors. Cowards who chose life before the War God’s mighty presence. All their talk or resistance turned to servile servitude

"Calvary, their traitors!" Umbra shouted.

It was her luck or just the bond they had connected during their shared struggle and shared lover, Morgana heard Umbra.

When the vanguard came close, Morgana leapt in front of them, sailing through the sky as she jumped over the battlefield. She landed, dust rose, she punched the open air, and launched a wave of telekinetic force blasting the horse riders back and knocking them over like saplings in a storm.

Umbra could only see Morgana’s back. She saw her behead the one called Erec. In her leadership, magic and might, she trusted. Now, she had to respond to Morgana’s effort and save their lover.

Umbra ran. She ran through danger: she ran past those she could save, those she ran away from those she could kill, and stopped for nothing.

She ran to her saviour’s dying arms.

Again she watched her world fall apart.

The sorcerer Damian, a close second to her true love Morgana, lay still barely breathing.

Mars stood triumphant having just knocked out Làidir. Làidir who was far stronger and a better fighter than Iris. The two most powerful in their group had managed to take the weapons and left an open bite mark wound on Mars’ neck.

She hadn’t yet fallen to despair, for Morgana still fought against the Romans. Instead fury burned within her and then exploded outwards in a flame tornado the likes of which she had ignited in that valley of undeath and now once more in the city of Eklibour.

She caught a few allies in friendly fire, but many many more Romans turned to ash.

Iris’ flames burned harmlessly against Làidir whose ancestry gave her great resistance. Mars, however, was stopped from crushing her brains out, but her burning touch.

He roared, more in frustration than in pain.

"No. I won’t die. Not to a druid."

He tried to strike her down with lightning, but nothing came. Instead he sighed with exhaustion. Then he spasmed shocks of familiar lightning shaking him, Damian’s magic. He also put a hand to the open wound at his neck and grimaced.

Damian had weakened him, and Làidir wounded him.

Iris wasn’t yet sure how, but she was certain she could stop him.

She bathed the god of war in fire and charged.

Meanwhile, I rolled over. It was all I could manage because Mars had struck true and now I clung to life.

I wanted to help in the fight. However, I struggled just to breathe and most of my remaining magic was trying to regain control of my body from the burning divine energy trying to turn my body to cinder and magic form to nothingness.

A roman assassin drew their knife, but then gagged. An arrow point stuck through their throat. Saw in the distance Meredith and her bow. Meredith’s arrow, I guessed. Why, though?

Meredith ran.

How things repeat, and yet how different they were from last time.

New attackers came. Umbra took out the two Romans in a wave of disease. They clawed at their decaying skin and died.

Umbra once more reached by side

Another assassin came, but it was Tulisa who kicked him back. He became a puddle of blood and mucus. Her new body gave her phenomenal strength. She had the young girl on her back.

Both Umbra and Tulisa held me up.

In another situation, two women clinging to my side raising me up would have been a smug joy and wonderful delight. Now I felt like a scarecrow, or like an old man with crutches. Even as a fake corpse, or soon to be one, the world had need of me yet to stay alive.

Iris was getting destroyed in her slug fest with Mars. She diminished smaller and her flames fluttered dimmer with each blow she took. Until. Iris dropped to one knee, shrunk from her giant form and her flames vanquished.

Morgana desperately tried to cut through, but fresh waves of traitor clan warriors and Romans rushed her and her fellow defenders.

Tara, however, made it and stood in front of Iris. Tara, hero of Ferisdarm, but all she was a mortal warrior with a magically sharp weapon.

She tried to strike, but the God of War slapped it out of her hands. Her fingers broke and the weapon flew from her reach.

"I saw your feats against the Unseelie, and today and now you stand defiant before Mars. You are a brave warrior. What is your name?"

"I am Tara, Oathsworn to the Sorcerer Damian, and he has made his wishes clear. Death to the Gods!"

Tara grappled the God of War, her hands in his with their feet planted.

She spoke no words, for she could not in the extremity of her agony. She screamed, red-faced and veins popping, in defiance.

For her mortal unmagical strength stood no chance. All the enchantments I’d given her failed against divine might. First, her wrists snapped, next her hand shattered, then her knees buckled inwards breaking her legs, and finally her collar bone split and she hit the ground.

Iris grew her arm huge and punched Mars back causing him to stumble away a few feet.

I tried to think of what to do. Mars’ open wound burned at his neck. He had run after the dragon came. Dragonfire, it could kill them.

"It’s dragon fire, burn him with it...!" I shouted at her.

Mars howled hearing the words. He sprang at Iris, determined to kill her then and there.

I fired lightning stream continuously from the heavens, he tried to dodge, but it struck hs shoulder and split apart his flesh

So my lightning could burn hot enough to burn him, but I had nothing left to give.

Iris reared her head back and she transformed into a dragon snout using what all of the little left, but great power she had to spare.

Iris poured dragon fire flames into Mars’ wound. When she was done, the God of War was cooked. She dropped to both knees and her head dropped. Her legs gave out and she hit the ground utterly spent.

Her flames were lethal, and she too had fallen.

Though dying, Mars committed one last attack.

A single, mountain crushing punch to the base of Iris’ skull.

Mars struck, but it was Tara that took the blow. In an act of near impossible mental strength she had with her broken body risen from the ground as little more than a meat shield

Tara’s skull shattered and brain squished into mush, and still Mars’ strike powered through, and it was less Tara’s body and more the disgust and shock Mars’ felt something go wrong, tricked him than he drew back early.

He still struck Iris.

Unable to move with her spine shattered, but thanks to Tara’s sacrifice, her head was still attached to her neck. Our growing child was spared.

The God of War lay smote and Iris lay still as if dead. But she clung to life...

Morgana slew traitors and Romans in groups. Not so long ago, she would have struggled, but win against a single Roman warrior and maybe take out a group. Now she was wrath incarnate. A whirlwind of steel and magic while all the rest of her main group where busy with Mars and his eagle, she slaughtered and rallied her warriors against an attack easily ten times their number.

The Roman’s gear and tactics made them nigh unbeatable even for the Druids whose magic could do little against divine metal. The clan warriors came in great numbers to each of the three great clans, the majority having turned on her people and those few loyal to the ways of Albion.

The warriors from afar, the very same ones they had met before they came to Elkilbour, who had once waged a guerilla war against the Roman now had become their allies. Along with the majority of the clan warriors united they made for waves of warriors.

She tried and failed to help her love. Now all she could do was fight and cry and scream with fury laden pride, "There God is dead. War is dead. The Sorcerer’s Will has been made real. Rise, Rise onto Tomorrow!"

And she raised the barge into the sky.

"Everyone aboard. Fight the traitors off, slaughter every last Roman you see! We rise. We carry the Sorcerer, we carry Iris the Godslayer, we sail through the very skies towards tomorrow. We fly home!"

So, they fought and they flew. She did not know that Damian’s enchantments on the barge did most of the complicated details of flight. Did it matter? Damian spent and so his work lay dormant. They would be inert without her power and guidance.

A few still remained, but Morgana orders were clear, "Kill them all!"

It was not a night for mercy, at least, for the bloodlusting Morgana. Her warriors all too gladly obeyed.

The remaining attackers’ bodies were thrown overboard when the last of them perished.

"The night is won! Mars is dead and you all seized not just glory, or preserved your very life. You have defended the past and our bright future. Never again know shame. You are all the best of us. Rest weary warriors. We have won."

I was still held by precious Umbra and loyal Tulisa as Morgana declared victory.

It was a bittersweet end. Tara was dead and not even I could bring her back from such a state of destruction. Further, as I was carried over to Iris, I guessed true she was in a coma. Làidir through her body looked whole, broken from loss and defeat.

We refugees were once again fleeing, this time from Elkilbour. Though our deeds, number, and accomplishment were greater compared to our flight from Ferisdarm, so too were our losses and pain.

We were refugees now. A refugee’s life ain’t simple. It had been a long road from my summoning in the hills and forests. First to Yolin’s Hill then to Ferisdarm and from there the journey across Albion into its north part of Alba where we were welcomed into Elkilbour. Now here we were fleeing Elkilbour.

It had always been the intention to leave. Not like this, after what felt like a pyrrhic victory.

As Morgana had said. We flew towards tomorrow.

I had a new civilisation to build.