Temple Hill - Drew Karpyshyn [70]
"We know there is a traitor among us," Fhazail had whispered in his ear earlier that night at the warehouse. "It could be anyone. Undoubtedly there will be an ambush waiting for us soon after we leave the city."
That is why we have the guards," Azlar replied. "Only an insane fool would attack a squadron of Dragon elite escorting a mage with my power."
Fhazail merely nodded in the direction of the workers busily chopping the naga's corpse into pieces small enough to stow inside barrels of flour. "Does that look like the work of someone sane?"
"Very well," Azlar conceded, "what do you suggest?"
"Merely an alternate route, O wondrous wizard. If we take an unexpected path through the forest, our enemies will be caught unawares. We will miss their ambush completely."
"And you know of such a route?"
"But of course, most magnificent mage" the fawning steward replied.
Azlar had foolishly taken Fhazail's path-right into a trap. The fat man would die for this.
The barrage of arrows stopped, and with a yell a horde of goblins, ores, and kobolds burst from the sin-rounding thicket. Azlar snapped his head from side to side, but amazingly Fhazail was nowhere to be found. The mage stood up to his full height, determined to blast Fhazail into tiny pieces for his treachery. Even as he ran through a mental list of the spells he could use to obliterate the corpulent infiltrator he heard a familiar incantation.
He threw himself to the ground and scampered away on all fours from the soldiers who had been guarding him. A second later the air was split by the sizzle of electricity, and a lightning bolt shot in from either side, striking the guards, fusing their armor and frying the helpless men inside.
Azlar began an incantation of his own, oblivious to the sound of sizzling skin inside melted metal and the smell of cooking flesh wafting up from the nearby corpses. A shimmering shield of magical power materialized around his form. His defenses in place, he turned his attention to bis enemies.
On the left was a white-haired mage clad in a deep blue cowl, to his right a middle-aged female wearing bright red robes. The male unleashed a shower of glowing orbs that rained down on Azlar, only to be absorbed harmlessly in the nimbus of energy surrounding the young spellcaster. From his right a column of fire erupted from the hands of the sorceress in red, but protected by his spell, Azlar felt only the faintest hint of heat as the inferno struck him.
He began another spell while his enemies scrambled to raise their own defenses. The air around the female flickered and blurred, and suddenly there was not one but four red robed sorceresses opposing him, each one completely identical in appearance and actions.
Azlar sneered in contempt. The red mage's defense was a minor casting, a spell designed to confuse an opponent, to keep them guessing as to which figure was the mage, and which were merely harmless mirror images. The spell was barely worthy of Azlar's powers, it would only buy the woman a few more seconds of life.
Her partner was not so lucky. His hands and arms wove frantic patterns in the air, words of arcane power spilled from his mouth, but he was too slow. A blast from Azlar's hand encased the rival mage in a tomb of ice, freezing his spell on cold, dead lips.
Each of the sorceress's reflections began going through the identical actions as she prepared another casting. The shimmering shield around Azlar flickered then winked out of existence, dispelled by his opponent. A bolt of flame appeared in Azlar's fist. He hurled his spell at the four red robed women in front of him, choosing his target at random. The flaming arrow struck unerringly, completely engulfing the target in fire. It was the wrong