CHAPTER 17 Torj
Torj
‘Warswords were originally trained to fight alone, but as the shadow war erupted across the midrealms and the world became rife with monsters, working in teams was deemed the more effective tactic’
– A History of Thezmarr
‘WREN!’ TORJ LEAPT in front of her, dragging her away from Silas’s line of fire. Every report they’d received had told them the Kingsbane was in Delmira, and yet here he was, that strange power rippling off him.
Wren moved to strike again, but Torj gripped her wrists.
‘You have to stop. You’re only fuelling him and hurting yourself.’
Dazed, she touched her fingers to the blood leaking from her nose, her green eyes widening as she stared at the crimson on her fingertips.
‘How?’ she croaked, trying to peer over his shoulder to where their enemy stood, stronger than before.
‘I don’t know, Embers, but we have to deal with Drevenor before he—’
Thea skidded to a stop beside them, staring at Silas, her mouth agape. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘He’s absorbing the storm magic,’ Torj told her, keeping his voice measured, though he was anything but calm inside.
‘Anything you and Wren throw at him could be thrown right back at us. You need to destroy the building and everything inside it – the alchemy, the secrets, the books, the shadow artefacts, anything he could use to grow stronger. You need to bring the academy down.’
Thea shot Wren a look of disbelief, but Wren nodded in confirmation. ‘He’s right. We saw it with our own eyes, Thea. I don’t understand it, but he’s right.’
Without hesitation, Torj swung his war hammer in a deadly arc and called, ‘Hawthorne, Whitlock, you’re with me!’
He didn’t need to glance beside him to know his fellow Warswords had fallen into formation. One of Cal’s arrows whistled through the air, shooting straight for Silas, who deflected it with his shield.
‘We need buy Wren and Thea as much time as we can,’ Torj told them as they closed in on the Kingsbane. ‘If Silas gets his hands on whatever’s inside the academy, this war is over before it has begun. Masks up.’
‘Understood,’ Wilder said gruffly, unsheathing his dual swords.
They pulled swathes of fabric over the lower halves of their faces and charged towards Silas.
Torj saw a blur of movement in his periphery – Wren and Thea breaking away from their small party, moving in perfect synchronization, their lightning blazing paths through the enemy ranks.
Thea cut down any who dared attack them directly while Wren ran in her wake, throwing bolts of brilliant white like spears towards the academy.
Across the grounds, their movements flowed like a deadly dance, each anticipating the other’s needs without a word, all the while channelling their storm magic into the great tree that still towered through the heart of the building.
Cal gave a sudden shout as another of his arrows ricocheted off Silas’s shield and a unit of three dozen masked men appeared behind their leader from the swirling mist. Torj had barely a second to register the arrival of Silas’s reinforcements before they surged forwards, their darkened armour a stark contrast against the lightning-lit battlefield.
A glass orb shattered between Torj and a masked opponent, and he whirled around to see Dessa pulling vials from her pockets and launching them at the enemy. Torj dived just in time before the orb exploded, showering Silas’s men with a horrifying sickly green liquid that had them screaming.
Smoke erupted around them, thick and acrid, clawing at Torj’s lungs as he swung his hammer into an attacker’s breastplate. The metal caved in, along with his sternum. Torj fought his way towards Silas, ducking and weaving between enemy alchemists and Cal’s latest volley of arrows.
Too late, he saw an opponent reach for a potion, but Wilder was there, slicing clean through the enemy’s wrist before he could throw the vial.
‘Thanks,’ Torj grunted as he swung his hammer with so much force that it crushed the head right off a masked man’s shoulders.
Behind the first wave of soldiers were those akin to the howlers from the shadow war – not quite as mutilated as the monsters that had come before, but just as bloodthirsty and violent.
‘To me!’ Torj shouted.
The three Warswords moved as one, a triangle of deadly precision, as the next wave of Silas’s men crashed against them.
Torj’s hammer carved devastating arcs, each impact sending men flying backwards with crushed armour and broken bones.
Cal had abandoned his bow for twin daggers, his movements a blur as he sliced through vulnerable points in their enemies’ defences.
Wilder roared with each swing of his swords, cutting down two men at once with a cross-slash that left them crumpling to the ground.
Silas remained untouched, watching them intensely. His shield shimmered, absorbing every fragment of energy and magic that flickered around him, while the air crackled with residual storm power.
Torj caught glimpses of Wren and Thea through the chaos.
They had reached the academy’s main entrance, lightning coalescing around their joined hands as they worked in tandem, feeding their storm magic into the ancient tree that had grown throughout the building’s existence.
The branches sprouting above the academy’s spires began to glow with an eerie teal light, vibrating with barely contained power.
‘They need more time!’ Torj shouted, blocking a sword strike with his hammer’s haft before delivering a punishing blow to his attacker’s chest.
‘Stop them!’ Silas screamed through the fray, and instantly a unit broke away from the main fighting, sprinting towards the Embervale sisters.
‘Cal!’ Wilder called out.
Cal’s signature flaming arrows carved through the air once more, each hitting a target, causing them to drop one by one. The youngest Warsword then dropped back so he could pick off any of Silas’s men who attempted to attack Wren and Thea.
Now lightning struck the tree’s massive frame, setting the academy’s interior ablaze with blue-white fire that not only consumed the building, but devoured the very shadows within.
Silas himself turned to the Embervale sisters, reaching for their magic. The air between them distorted as he attempted to siphon their power, even from afar, but Torj threw himself between the Kingsbane and the storm wielders.
‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth. He could feel his strength ebbing, the tremors starting up again in his hands as he gripped his war hammer.
‘The loyal Warsword,’ Silas mocked, sounding eerily like Zavier. ‘So keen to die for others.’
Torj circled warily, keeping himself between Silas and the sisters. ‘Not planning on dying today.’
‘But soon, yes?’ There was a smile in Silas’s voice now. ‘I hear you know of the parting gift I left you with when you rescued poor Reyna. How hard that must be for you and your storm queen – to share such a bond, only to be torn apart . . .’
Torj ignored his words, didn’t give Silas the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. It was just an expression, wasn’t it? Silas couldn’t know of their soul bond, could he?
Torj swung his hammer, only to see a curved blade materialize in Silas’s hand beside his shield, coated in a familiar alchemical sheen.
They clashed in a furious exchange of blows, Torj’s Furies-given strength coursing through him, but ebbing away faster than ever before.
And Silas moved like smoke, impossible to pin down.
The alchemy-treated blade left trails of darkness in the air, and where it struck Torj’s hammer, the metal hissed and blackened.
‘You can’t stop what’s coming,’ Silas hissed, pressing his advantage as Torj defended. ‘I made sure of it.’
In the distance, Torj could hear Wilder and Cal fighting their way towards him, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
Behind them, the academy shuddered violently.
The great oak had become a conduit for pure storm energy, its branches reaching to the clouds above, drawing down lightning in continuous streams. A sudden blast shattered all the remaining windows and the building’s walls began to collapse inwards as the lightning and flames coursed through the tree’s roots, tearing through the foundation.
Even with the distance between them, Torj felt Wren’s cry of anguish in his bones, her lightning causing the earth to rumble beneath their very boots.
Fire engulfed everything in its path, consuming all the knowledge that Drevenor housed, the knowledge that had been the victor over fate.
In moments, decades of work was gone. The last samples of the silvertide rose, Wren’s carefully documented experiments, every breakthrough she had made – all of it dissolved into ash, and Torj grieved for her.
Silas struck with his shield, and Torj staggered backwards.
He landed hard, the breath knocked from his lungs, tremors wracking not only his hands but his body as well.
Through blurred vision, he saw Silas rise to his feet.
The energy he’d absorbed was swirling around him in a maelstrom, his mask shimmering with alchemy now as well.
‘The old world is dying, Warsword,’ the Kingsbane said. ‘I’m the future now.’
Torj’s arms burned with effort, his hammer buckling as he blocked another blow from Silas’s otherworldly weapon. ‘The future,’ he rasped, spotting Wren from the corner of his eye, ‘doesn’t belong to men like you.’
Torj felt Wren’s power surge through their bond and, in the distance, the academy gave one final, tremendous groan before collapsing entirely.
And then lightning blinded them all.