Shrouded

((Book 2 is finished if you want to read ahead its here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBZR49Q7

Book 1 if this is your first time here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BZZBHBMF?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_mng_calw_0&storeType=ebooks)))

The apostle's dark eyes glimmer in the dark like two smoldering coals as he taps his head with his staff. His voice booms and shakes the earth. How such an unimposing figure could carry such an imposing voice, and carry such an imposing aura.

"Roki and the White One had extended the hand of mercy to you." The apostle says, "To those of Efra; he saves you from extinction, from those from Earth, he did the same, for your pathetically weak world will fall within the year." The apostle paces a couple feet away, and stamps All He asked was for labor." The apostle, "All he asked was for your help."

The army stamped their feet, and the crows beat their wings. Dust rushed into the sky and clung to the battlefield.

"And you....ungrateful beings spit in their faces. You...eschew their mercy, and for what? Just so you can die in a pitiful attempt to stand against the waves of inevitability? Let me show you the power of Roki. Let me show you the power that will conquer your world."

The apostle taps the staff against the ground. A ball of flame as bright as the sun forms above him.

"Let me show you the power that will consume your world, and the ones you love so that in your final moments you will only know despair."

The apostle lets loose the ball of flickering flame in an arc toward the walls. Nyt points her wand forward and water mana rushes up her leg and out of her arm through the wand. I catch the slight shimmer in the air like light caught on the waters of a rushing current. The mana collides with the flames and scatters it into a million pieces like a firework.

Smatterings of the flame crash against the earth and rain down over all of us.

"Dance before me, o' daughters of the wind."

The small dervish I conjure rips off into the sky and pulls in most of these pieces of flaming raindrops, and tosses them in a thousand different directions.

The apostle conjures another spell. Swirling black clouds form at his beck and call above the two of us. As an ominous rumble emits from the cloud, Nyt draws a dagger from her waist and tosses it into the clouds just as a blue streak begins to form within them. The lightning catches the dagger and then shoots straight into the ground; leaving a large ring of char.

"Lawrence! What are you waiting for? Attack!" Nyt calls.

"A volley, o djinn."

Five arrows of wind and flame shoot out in an arc toward the apostle. With a wave of his hand, a geyser of water shoots forth and consumes the flaming arrow in bouts of steam.

Earthen Spike.

Just as the spike was beginning to form, the apostle taps his staff on the ground. The ground breaks apart as a pocket of air bursts forth in the path that my earth mana was taking. He thrusts his hands forward, and the dust-filled air forms into a twister, howling toward us. Nyt sends a stream of earth mana into the base of the forming tornado.

"I call upon Zeus; lord of Olympus, lend me a bolt so that I might smite my enemy."

A blue bolt streaks across the night, once more the apostle motions with his hand as a pillar of earth forms in its path. The pillar breaks apart at the force into chunks of hardened soil and stone. Those chunks fly forward in both my direction, and Nyt's.

Two large earthen spikes form in front of both of us and collapse as they absorb the blows of the projectiles, one manages to sneak through, and collide against the front of the gate, splintering the wood, but not shattering it just yet. The log we used as a bar, and the piles of boulders we had moved to block the gate beforehand doing its job of holding it in place.

The apostle cocks back his arm and swings his staff toward us like a baseball bat. The wind howls and ignites as a tornado of flame breathed to life and lit up the night.

"Oh thou daughters of the wind and sea, dance, dance, dance before me. "

A water spout pulls all the moisture in the air into it, as it forms in the path of the oncoming fire tornado. Though the water spout is tall, it doesn't even reach half of the height of the apostle's spell. The two collide, and white steam floods the battlefield, yet the apostle's spell prevails.

Nyt fires off a thread of weaved earth and water mana into the base of the tornado. An explosion of wind and steam shatters the earth where the whirling inferno stood, and rushes past. We both lower ourselves as the heated humid air rushes by and crashes over the wooden walls of the palisades like a cloud crashing against a mountain's peak. My ears ring, and I feel the trickling of blood flowing out of my left canal, down the stubble that had grown over the last two days.

The Apostle swings his staff parallel to the ground, and a flaming blade hisses through the air in our direction. Nyt fires a strand of water mana, and another burst of steam fills the air and settles on the ground.

Surely, the apostle knows more than fire spells...the apostle points his staff forward, and a gout of flame roars to life. Once again Nyt counters it in a burst of hot steam that blows back in the direction of the apostle; blinding us to his movements temporarily; yet the glow of a flaming spear being launched from his direction made it obvious. Wouldn't it have been better to attack us with something that didn't give away his position? Once more the Ir counters it with a thread of water mana that bisects the oncoming spear into two streams of hissing steam that fly toward us before settling on the ground with the other dust and the spell-formed white fog.

Doesn't it seem heavier than it should be? The currents of air begin to shift ever so slightly, and my eye darts to and fro through the mist that clings close to the ground and clutters the horizon. Another fireball, no bigger than my head flies out from the mist. Nyt counters it in a burst of steam. Three bolts of fire; each countered by the Ir in bursts of hot steam. I look to the fog as the steam settles on the ground. There was too much. Some of the steam should have been lifted already. Another loudly hissing spell roared through the night. Why was it so loud? How about the other sounds? I should be hearing the chirping of bats through the woods. I should be hearing the beating of wings. I should be...yet all I hear is the roaring of the apostle's spells. Another fire spell hisses through the mist.

Occasionally, there would be spells of different types thrown in; bolts of lightning that I'd block with Earthen Spikes just as he had done, icy daggers flinging through the air that would melt with a Lava Orb, earthen spells that would be met with geysers of wind blasting out of the ground to interrupt their streams, and gusts of wind meant to knock us from our perch, but those I block with more earthen spikes; though the force of the wind was as such that it would break apart the packed earth. I could tell that this particular apostle was a master of elemental magics.

Each non-fire spell, however, would be followed up with two or three fire spells; never in any set cadence, perhaps he thinks by doing so he could throw us off. I glance back to the archers, they yawn and tap their bows against the ground...sounds that I couldn't pick up from this distance. Sounds...

A realization dawns on me.

"Dance before me, o dau—"

The mist parts briefly as a heavy stone pushes through the wall of fog and mist strikes me in the stomach. I double over and cast Lesser Heal on myself to ease the pain.

"Are you okay?" Nyt calls from across the gap.

"He's distracting us!" I call back as I push myself off the ground. "Blinding us to his troop's movements!"

I point my wand forward.

"Dance before me —"

A stone spike erupts from my perch and once more slams into my stomach. My Repel shatters as I'm sent flying briefly, before crashing against the slope of the spike and rolling down it. I hadn't even felt the movements of mana with that spell. I cough, and blood stains the gray earth spike. Another round of Lesser Heals eases that pain.

Nyt scans the steam as I try to scramble up the side of the remaining spike.

"You that bind the all, guard me against all that would do me harm."

Another invisible shield forms around me right before I push myself up to my feet. Barely visible through the shroud of mist and fog, were the looming shadows of the approaching army.