The Elements of Sorcery by Christopher Kellen

Author:Christopher Kellen [Kellen, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Christopher Kellen
Published: 2014-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

XVI

The beast thrashed on the ground, kicking sand into the air in a cloud of dust as it worked to right itself. Throughout it all, I could see it staring at me. I'd kicked the hornet's nest now; it was going to be fixated on me for certain.

Small curls of blue flame licked at the edges of the shrike's claws and around its mouth. They seemed to be causing it further pain. Good, I thought viciously.

"Mendoz," I hissed. "It's going to come for me. See if you can get around it and give it a good stab, would you?"

"Uh… right," the big monster hunter said. "Sure thing."

"Vellierz, you cover Mendoz."

"Got it," my pudgy friend answered immediately. "Damn, that thing's big."

They took off running, skirting around the shrike's fury and keeping to the shadows. In order to ensure that it did not get distracted, I began hurling every insult I could think of in every language I knew at the beast, waving my hands around and jumping up and down like a fool. "Come on, you slimy sack of excrement!" I yelled in my best Old Tellarian.

When it finally righted itself, it spared no seconds in making another beeline for my heart. It moved so quickly I could barely see it, like a flash of black lightning.

I had no time to call up my power, so I threw my weight into moving out of the way. I barely avoided the claws gouging out my innards for the second time in as many days, but the beast's shoulder clipped me on the way past. Pain flared all along the right hand side of my body as the weight of a runaway ox cart slammed into me, sending me spinning to the ground.

My breath went out of me in a rush, and it felt as though my lungs were paralyzed. I struggled to get my arms beneath me and pushed my face up away from the sand, trying desperately to draw a breath.

As soon as its claws touched the sand it was moving again, turning as though it had no inertia at all. It bounded three or four times to the side, and then whipped itself around in midair, claws scything down toward me. I rolled across the sand, trying to right myself, and the claws slammed to the ground, sending up a spray of sand where my head had been only seconds before.

It was fast. It was deadly. Staring at the beast, I realized that we were outnumbered, though we technically had the advantage at three to one. It just didn't feel that way.

Why did I keep getting myself into these things?

Air, sweet, precious air filled my lungs again. I dropped to my side on the sand, threw out my right hand—the one with the gold ring and amber gem on it—and screamed out a phrase in Old Tellarian. "Khrona dakar!"

When all you want is to kill something, it's hard to beat fire.

True mastery of evocation depends on your understanding of the five elements: wind, fire, water, metal and wood.

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