Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Despite the adrenaline surging through me, I have no chance to engage anyone in combat from where I’m standing.
No one dares to approach me because of what will happen if their weapon touches my shield.
I suppose they’re all hoping to capture or wound everyone else and then corner us here.
We’re sitting ducks – if the others fall, Allen and I have no chance to get away.
And who knows what the other teams will do to hurt our people, and in how many ways.
All of this is so idiotic – how come no one realises this?
They’re killing each other for the sake of some stupid, stupid points.
I thrum with frustration as the four Warriors circle Mace, and while he’s parrying a blow, one of them slashes at the back of his leg.
He neatly avoids it, but he barely catches himself.
I lash out. In the blink of an eye, I teleport behind Team Silver.
I need to move. I need to do something before they see me. But I can’t raise the shield, because I might risk trapping rival Warriors with me.
What I need is a point of impact. I remember the jousting knight exercise.
I just need to touch their weapons, to create that forcefield that will throw the other Warriors back.
I react on instinct, before I can think it through.
I raise one finger, creating a shimmering shard of my shield.
It’s a thin strip like a curved, long blade when it slices through the air, and I realise that’s what I was looking for.
I don’t know if I can control it, though, but I have no time to muse, because one of the Warriors circling Mace sees me and notices that my shield isn’t up.
When the Team Silver Warrior turns to me, I react, lifting a single finger. His short sword falls on a thin strip of shield – and he’s thrown back, directly into a Team Bronze Warrior.
Mace reacts fast and pushes against the other two Warriors.
I can work with this.
I throw myself in the thick of the fight, trying to remember every single thing about combat that Mace has tried to drill into me in the past few weeks, but since I haven’t been doing this for long, the best that I can do is to try and not get in the way of my own team.
I start picking off the Warriors who have clustered around Mace, lifting thin slivers of shield, trying to aim at their weapons.
I approach from the side, throwing them off with the force of the impact, and herding them away from Mace.
We need to eliminate them from this field, then I can tend to Allen’s wounds.
It seems to be working. The Warriors don’t know how to react to my magic – they’re too used to battling weapons similar to their own – and before I know it, I’ve isolated two of them away from Mace, and I’m herding them back, towards the opposite cliff wall.
Fight.
I can do this. I can do this. I don’t need to stand around like a useless boot.
The two Warriors from Team Bronze I’m facing look at each other, a wordless exchange between them, then they raise their swords at the same time and come charging towards me.
I’m ready to throw up an arc of a shield with a swipe of two fingers, but just then something slams into me from behind and throws me off-kilter.
My shield goes off too much to the right, and I rush to throw another one, my mind blaring in alarm at what’s happening behind me. There’s a grunt, and then Mace’s gruff voice, the warmth of his body at my back, as he says, ‘Watch your back, Ellie. You let them distract you.’
I glance over my shoulder and notice Mace is engaged with a Team Silver Warrior who’d been about to attack me from behind, while I was focused on the Warriors in front of me. They nearly had me and I didn’t realise it, and I could kiss Mace for keeping an eye on me, but?—
‘Honestly, mate, you didn’t expect me to become a top-tier Warrior in just a few weeks,’ I say.
‘Don’t argue with me, and just do better next time,’ Mace roars, and throws his body into his next swing.
I’d have one or two choice words for him, but I try to remember that Mace gets all growly when he thinks I’m in danger, that it makes him grumpy and shouty. So I try to be the better person: ‘Thanks for having my back.’
He grunts. That’s probably as much of an acknowledgement as I’ll get for now, so I leave it be.
I fend off another attack from the two Team Bronze Warriors, and marvel at how easy this comes to me, because I don’t exactly have to aim my shield precisely, like a weapon, but just raise it around in thinner strips, to make myself untouchable.
It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game, and I wonder if this isn’t too easy, and the rival Warriors will figure out a way to get past my defences.
‘Mace!’ Allen’s cry makes me shudder. I look back towards the flag and see that one single Warrior is striding towards him, his sword raised.
Hurt, unprotected and in pain.
For an instant, I actually, truly believe that the rival Warrior might kill him.
For a fucking, lame flag. My magic reacts, and I let it carry me in front of Allen.
I lift my hands, and the shield encloses around us long before the Warrior reaches us.
He stops a few steps away from me, swinging back his sword, careful not to come into contact with my shield.
But I’m so fucking done with this.
I’ve had just about enough. My anger has reached a boiling point, and it makes the magic burn in my veins. My entire body is literally aching to let it loose.
So I do.
I throw my hand in front of me, like a slap, and the magic explodes out of me in a whoosh. The Warrior is wrenched back and lands hard at Xandra’s feet. She looks up at me in shock, but I’m so done with the uselessness of this violence.
‘Step back, Xandra,’ I say, and for once, she doesn’t argue with me, but ducks out of the way and at Mace’s side.
I teleport in front of the Warrior I threw back.
I take a good look at his face now: he’s red-haired and freckled and built like a door.
He tries to get up on wobbly feet, but I won’t let him: I’ll send him right back down in the dirt, where he belongs.
I launch another whoosh of magic at him, catching him like a punch in the stomach, and knocking him into the Warrior that Xandra was battling just a moment ago.
Again and again and again, I throw them back. They’re screaming, but I’m not hearing anything anymore. I want them out of here. I want them gone. I never want to see them again.
Mace is shouting something behind me, but I can’t hear him, I pursue the two relentlessly.
My bean pings, and I pull at my earlobe more out of annoyance.
‘Ellie, get back here.’ Mace is in full-arsehole mode.
‘I need you to do the same with the four Warriors circling me and Xandra. We can push them back for good this way.’
Something in the way he says it pierces through my foggy brain, and I turn on my heels and teleport right between Xandra and Mace.
But they’re fighting and I’m sort of in the way, and I don’t know how to do this, so I just scream at them to duck, and throw another blast of my power around me.
I think some of it catches Xandra in the leg, because her knees give in and she rolls away, but I’ve done my job, because the Warriors around us are scattering like cockroaches.
Fight, fight, fight.
I hate this, I hate every second of this, but standing aside and rolling with the punches won’t do much good.
Team Silver and Team Bronze seem to get the message, though, because they start running of their own accord. I still shove them back, chase them away, push them with my power.
‘Fold back! Fold back!’ Jon screams.
About fucking time.
I’m chasing a few stragglers, too lost to this, when Mace’s voice blares in my ear, through the connection with the bean, which must still be open.
‘Enough, Ellie, they’re retreating. Now go and see about Allen, and then we should start moving.
Stella said the mission of protecting the flag is complete. We’re sitting ducks here.’
Allen.
I sprint towards him – even if I’m running on fumes now – throw my backpack to the ground and pull out the Pocket Healer.
There’s a long gash along his thigh, and I think it might have split a tendon, if not even a nerve.
Xandra kneels next to him and extracts a small knife from the sheath at her waist and proceeds to cut wide open the fabric of his trousers, so I can see his wound more clearly.
It’s deep.
I’m fumbling with my Pocket Healer, initialising it, when Xandra whimpers next to me, ‘Tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do, Ellie.’
Allen is lying on the ground, his eyes glassy, probably from the blood loss.
‘Bandages,’ I say. ‘And clean his wound.’ I shove my backpack at her with my foot and she begins rummaging through it.
By the time I’ve finished the diagnostics on the gash in Allen’s thigh, Xandra begins spreading disinfectant on his wound, patting at the edges with clean gauze. Allen hisses through his teeth.
‘Hold on,’ Xandra tells him. ‘Ellie is on it.’
I set up the long, necessary treatment sequence, cursing Central Command for not providing us with better equipment. If they had, Allen would already be healed by now. If Stella hadn’t hidden from us the movements of the rival teams, this would never have happened. It’s fucking sabotage.
And Allen had to take the hit for it.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ I yell pointlessly at Stella. We haven’t conjured her, but I’m sure she can hear me. ‘What is your problem?’
Xandra’s hands still for a moment, but she doesn’t comment.
‘Calm down, Ellie,’ Mace says. ‘We’re trained to deal with this sort of situations in the field.’
‘That’s terrific, Mace. That’s fucking terrific. Central Command is training you to serve as cannon fodder. Amazing. You’ve done brilliantly. Why didn’t you just surrender when you noticed you were outnumbered? Was this fucking worth it?’