Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [70]
In the midst of his elite guard stood a man wreathed in tentacles of flame. The fire did not touch his robes nor catch in his thick, black hair. The top halves of skulls-both humans and beasts-dangled from his necklace, and within their eye sockets flickered a terrible life and vitality. The man did not radiate power. He drank it in. Frost spiraled from his fingertips and enveloped entire lines of the opposing forces, freezing them where they stood, still as statues.
"For Nar!" the sorcerer's forces shouted as they ran forward. They struck the frozen soldiers. Limbs broke off, heads cracked, and some few shattered into hundreds of shards.
Still more warriors rushed forward to replace their fallen comrades. The sorcerer sent shards of ice, some large as daggers, some small as needles, into their midst. They ripped through exposed flesh, sending a fine mist of blood to the ground.
Scores of men died this way. Dozens more fled.
The front lines of the opposing armies met, sword and spear clashing on shield. Protected by their line, wizards from the opposing forces summoned magical shields to block the sorcerer's spells. The ice and frost broke on the invisible energy, and for the drawing of a breath the Nar advance faltered.
The sorcerer chanted an incantation, and his own power absorbed the energy from the wizards. Their shields melted away, and he renewed his attacks.
"Gaugan!" shouted the Nar as they renewed their attack. "Gaugan! For Nar! For Nar!"
The opposing force's wizards died beneath sword and upon spear, and for a moment the Nar stood upon an open field, their foes fleeing back like the receding tide. But the tide parted around one who stood in the midst of the slaughter.
She saw him, standing with staff in hand, the winds from the Nar sorcerer's spells sending his robes whipping around him. He was older, but she knew him. Arantar. Beside him stood another, similar in coloring, though his eyes were dark and his frame smaller. Where Arantar stood with the weight of years in his countenance, the one beside him still had the look of youth about him. Fading, yes, but still there.
The two men raised their staffs. Every spell the Nar sorcerer sent against them, these two broke or sent back into the lines of Nar soldiers.
The warriors who had fled before the Nar now turned, reformed their lines, and charged, shouting, "For Raumathar!"
Concern wrinkled the Nar sorcerer's brow, the briefest flicker of what could only have been fear, and then he smiled and began a new incantation. His back stiffened, his eyes rolled, showing only bloodshot white, and the muscles beneath his skin vibrated with a sick vitality.
Behind him the air cracked and widened. Within the torn reality yawned blackness, and a wind poured forth, cold enough to freeze skin and crack bone.
Five creatures, each twice the height of a man, clawed their way out of the ragged portal. They were like nothing that walked under the gods' sunlight. More insect than humanoid, they nevertheless walked on two legs, their mandibles clacking like the breaking of boulders, their long tails, covered in jagged barbs, whipped about their bodies, some even striking into the Nar ranks and ripping through armor and flesh alike.
The Nar sorcerer pointed at the two Raumathari sorcerers. The five abominations struck the earth, tearing through grass and soil, and charged.
The younger of the sorcerers stepped back, eyes wide and rimmed with fear, but Arantar stood his ground. Even as the first wave of frigid wind hit him, he raised his staff, looked to the sky, and shouted, "Father!"
Darkness and cold seemed to falter, as if their foundation had been struck with a great hammer, and now tiny cracks ran through them.
She looked down on Arantar, and two beings seemed to stand there in his frame, two hearts beating in his chest, and two minds looking out from his golden eyes. They shone with righteous indignation and a joy so pure that she cried out in wonder.
The five creatures