Battle confession

Nothing. I looked around, and realised that our position was now desperate. They were starting to flood the pass, indeed a large group was approaching the bottom of that snowfield from the other side and would soon roll us up.

Two of us had already died, and several were wounded but still fighting. We were starting to run out of arrows, and there was more and more sword fighting going on.

I was constantly busy warning my boys of threats around them, and only my organisation was holding us together. And soon, I would be dead.

The soldiers coming for me were making remarkable progress. Only one of my boys was near enough to me to save me, and it was Scar, the only one I could not warn.

How I regretted my actions now. Why had I allowed pride and ease to stand in the way of sorting things out with him?

How stupid I had been, now we would both die and we had lost our opportunity. I saw it clearly now, he was so in love with me, and that had been his problem, why he could not hardly talk to me about it. And I had made it hard for him.

Why? Scar, the love of my life, the only one I could not warn. All this passed through my mind in a moment. But then I realised that there was something wrong with that — I had communicated with Scar before, saved his life. If I could do it once, I could do it again.

I looked to him, he was resting on his sword with no soldiers around him. I cast him a picture of the soldiers climbing the pinnacle, and felt a distinct reply, concern and love for me. He started running in my direction.

But it was too late. He wouldn't make it, he couldn't. I cast my eyes around, we were done. It was all over. We would all die up here.

I was looking at our destruction, and that of the people and the land. I sent some more images out, but I started to wonder what the point was.

I only had a few minutes, and there was nothing I could do to make any difference now. At least my end would be quick, these soldiers wouldn't muck around with me. Their very ardour for the task told me that somehow they knew I was special.

If only the snow had avalanched, as we had hoped. How different things would be. In frustration, I lashed out at the snow. I felt it push back at me. My magic wasn't the right magic, we would all die.

The enemy soldiers were close now. I turned to check where Scar was, and saw him leaping from rock to rock, almost as if he was flying.

I watched mesmerised, I could not believe what he was doing. He was desperate to reach me, to protect me. It was a form of magic, surely what he was doing was not physically possible.

I measured the distances, it still wasn't enough. As a good bye, I cast him all my love, and felt his urgency and determination return to me.

At that moment I realised that I hadn't given everything, that I needed to give more. Scar's urgency and determination passed to me, and I knew that I could do one last thing.

I felt myself filling with power, and I turned back to the snow that had pushed back at me. If it had pushed back at me, then I could push it harder. I turned my whole being, everything that I had, and pushed at the snow.

I felt it push back at me, and I felt it come alive. I could feel that it wanted to fall, to slide, it just needed to know the way.

I felt it's vibrancy, the incredible tension running through it, and then I felt the weakness underneath it. But it was no use pushing at the bottom of it, the way the captain's magic had done.

It needed a decent shove from the top. I gave it one, and felt it moving, slowly at first but then gathering pace. I felt the awesome power growing, and suddenly I saw what would happen.

I pulled away from the snow and cast an image of the avalanche to the squad, along with a very clear image of them standing back from the edge of the pass.

For a couple of moments, I couldn't see anything happening. Just as I was giving up hope, I saw the snow starting to move, high up at the top of the snowfield, and the snowfield bulging and growing in the middle.

Suddenly, very suddenly, I saw it burst, and snow went everywhere. Then I heard the sound, unlike anything I had ever heard before.

Though I felt very weak, I managed to scramble back from the edge of the pinnacle myself, and wedged myself into a crevice in the rocks.

I saw a hand reaching over the edge of the platform I had been sitting on, and then the avalanche finally broke over the rim of the pass, taking many enemy soldiers with it.

The next few moments are a confused memory in my mind. The snow fell into the valley like water into a bowl.

I felt an unimaginably vast feeling of death as the snow hit the main army, still gathered below, and a windstorm of incredible magnitude suddenly blew out of the valley. The feeling of thousands of soldiers all dying at once overcame me, and I passed out.

I came to in Scar's arms, he was holding me tight. I looked around, and there was a dead soldier lying on my perch.

Scar had made it, I was completely amazed. I looked up at him, and saw love in his eyes. "What happened?"

"The avalanche killed most of them, blew them off the cliff. I killed this one, the other was gone. You've been unconscious for about half an hour, we think we've cleaned up the few that were left."

We won. I started to relax, then realized that I would not let one moment more go by without sorting something very important out. I gripped his arm. "Scar, I love you."

He smiled back at me, and looked at me with love and sincerity, and I felt his words echo through his very soul. "I love you too, Zia."