The Hedge Wizard

Hump’s victory over the breach was short lived. Lady Anara was already on the other side. If the tunnel failed now, she would be trapped there along with the rest of the Daston regiment. Thankfully, it did not take much to maintain the tunnel now. The living wall had lost much of its strength, so a simple Transform Earth was enough for Hump to do his part, at least for the moment.

“Be ready for its counterattack,” Lady Fentris said. “We are facing a cornered beast. So long as it still has strength, the fight is not over. “

As tired as Hump was, he mentally prepared himself for such a situation. The Earthheart Opal pulsed on his chest. His connection to the earth remained just as strong as it had a few moments ago, only now he lacked the essence to make full use of it. Around him, the air was tinged faintly with bronze, his manifested soul still carrying the traits of his previous efforts.

“Wizard Humphrey, are you able to continue?” Lady Fentris asked.

“I can do my part, but I won’t be able to do that again,” Hump said. If the situation called for it, he could perhaps use Spell Sculpting to increase the strength of Transform Earth a couple of tiers, but he was unsure how long it would last him, nor whether he would still have much fight left to give once they were finished. There was still a battle to win after all.

The others gave their status reports. The breach team were all getting tired, but that was inevitable. They just had to last long enough for the main army to get into the citadel.

Nishari gave Hump another vision of the situation as a whole. To the right, the army was moving in a series of large blocks, maintaining their formation as they marched so as not to expose weaknesses to the still very present demon threat. Demons bombarded them from the battlements, hurling destructive magic and projectiles. Greater demons took to the sky, venturing out of the citadel to sweep down and sow chaos amidst the ranks of soldiers, but they did everything they could to avoid going anywhere near General Korteg. Still, their harassment was slowing them down. At this rate, it would be a few minutes before they arrived. Minutes Hump wasn’t sure they would have.

“To the east!” the demon lord roared, his voice carried on the winds of essence. “Kur-lineth is breached!”

The demon lord, Draevor, closed the distance far faster. It flew with the speed of a hawk, diving headfirst through the air toward Count Daston, its red wings furled behind its back. Dark brown hair billowed about its face, and red eyes exuded a deadly intent that made Hump’s blood run cold. General Korteg and the rest of the army wouldn’t make it in time.

“Bud, are you seeing it?” Celaine said, pointing toward the approaching creature.

“I’m seeing it,” he said. “We’re going to need to hold it back somehow. Len, will your barriers work?”

“Against that thing…” Len shook his head. “Maybe for a few strikes.”

“Father, what do you want us to do?” Marcela called.

“Concentrate on your job,” boomed Count Daston. “The breach team must be protected. Leave this foul beast to me.”

The man stood tall, still radiant with the silver power of Avaroth, braced upon the battlements for what was coming. He was all that stood between them and the demon lord. The living wall’s arms tried to reach for the man but they could not make it past the light. The difference in strength was simply too great. Hump wondered whether it would be enough.

There was a shift in the air. The chaos of the battle suddenly went still—all that essence quieted by a single intent. That same, devastating purple gathered to Draevor, concentrating around the creature’s hand, its fingers long and taught like a blade. At first, the essence filled the air around it like a mist, but the energy only became denser and more ferocious. Soon, it formed a brilliantly bright beam in the shape of a blade.

Hump’s instincts told him that the count’s defences would mean little against such an attack. That blade… it felt like death. Fear filled Hump at the very sight of it, urging him to flee. He wondered how the count intended to block such a fearsome blow, one that had stilled the storm of essence across the battlefield. There was so much power focused into that single attack. So much strength. Hump had seen such spells utilising earth or water in the shape of a blade, but never purely in the form of essence. He couldn’t imagine the complexity of keeping so much power contained into such a shape, nor the method to wield such a spell.

Moment by moment, Draevor closed the distance. Heartbeats passed, and then he was upon the count, bladed and bearing down on him.

It seemed that Count Daston decided the blow was too much for him too. For the first time, Hump saw the giant of a man dodge. He moved so fast he was a silver streak. One moment, he stood facing the approaching demon lord, the next, he stepped to the side, the demon lord’s arm pushed off target.

Yet the blow didn’t end there. All that pent up energy erupted in a roaring explosion of purple light. Count Daston screamed as he was blasted from the battlements and into the citadel. The blast tore at the air, splinters of deadly intent prickling Hump’s skin, releasing a storm wind that threatened to knock Hump from his feet. He held tight to his staff, digging the butt into the cracked earth, bronze essence still steaming from within. He did his best to maintain his focus, not letting his grip over Transform Earth fail.

Screams erupted from the Daston regiment within the wall as the residual energy carried in the blast struck them. Hump caught a glimpse of a pink haze as Lady Anara’s flower blossoms unleashed their own essence to defend against the attack.

Celaine loosed an arrow. It struck the demon lord on the chest, not even disturbing it as it fixed them with its gaze. If one looked past the eyes and wings, Draevor almost looked human. Its features were male, though more graceful and soft than was typical. And it was tall—as tall as Count Daston even, though far thinner. It raised a dismissive hand toward them, a small orb of purple gathering before it.

Len stepped forward, a barrier forming before Hump and the others just as the demon lord’s magic exploded forward. The air erupted with killing intent, but it did not match the strength of Owalyn’s. It was not enough to shake Hump alone.

The quickly disintegrating barrier, however, was another matter entirely. Cracks spread across its surface as Draevor poured magic into its spell. The world turned to purple as it broke against Len’s blessing in great waves. Time felt slow as Hump watched inevitability approach, yet he maintained Transform Earth, focusing on his role in all this.

Trees erupted from the ground as Dylan unleashed his domain, shrouding them in protective power. Bud’s Eternal Bulwark filled the air with crystals, supporting Len’s barrier, but Hump could already tell it wouldn’t be enough.

Then the beam stopped. Count Daston stood before it on the walls, arms crossed before him and layered with silver. He screamed as the power of the demon lord broke against him, a beam of killing intent parted in four directions like a star.

As the spell ended, Count Daston panted. His skin had turned red and flaking, as if he’d been out in the sun for too long. In places, the spell had disintegrated all the way through to flesh, and now blood leaked from the wounds. There was no pause before the count launched himself, two fists of silver flame hammering the demon lord. The creature dodged the first but the second made contact, barely enough to turn the creature’s head. Essence picked up as the two joined in battle. A beam of purple shot forward and Count Daston directed it with a small ripple of silver, sending it shooting off into the citadel.

On the left side of the battlements, Owen pointed at something on the ground within the citadel.

“Greater demon approaching from the west,” he called. “Marcela, be ready. I think the wall is going to…”

The man trailed off as a tearing sound erupted to the left. Flesh pulled apart, and a host of demons erupted from within, all of them well armoured and carrying weapons that glowed with magic. They were elites compared to the enemies Hump and the others had faced so far, and at the head was a towering demon that carried a two-handed metal club, studded with arm length spikes and covered in runes. The creature was fully armoured in plate that gave off a pale green sheen, its surface also marked with the curls of demon magic.

Marcela’s Sheercliff Company and Bud’s Blackthorne Company advanced together, meeting the ravenous host in tight lines of shields, spears, and swords. Hump saw little from where he stood, but for the blessings that shrouded the soldiers, and the towering greater demon that cleaved through their ranks.

He caught a glimpse of Bud, armoured head to toe in Armour of Ice, shrouded by Heart of Frostfire, as he met the creature in combat. The hammer of steel filled the air. Atop the walls, the thunderous booms of Count Daston’s battle against the demon lord echoed. This would be no easy fight, and it pained Hump that he could not help. As stupid as it sounded, he felt helpless, standing there with his focus entirely on the wall.

Often, it was difficult to discern the winning side in the heat of battle. The ebb and flow of combat made for a constant shift in bodies, making it difficult to keep track of the numbers on each side. Even at a glance, Hump had no such trouble. The combined efforts of Hump and Marcela’s parties were far beyond what a single greater demon could match. They were being pushed back, their numbers dwindling, and their way out gone, the wall now closed behind them.

The fight atop the walls seemed far less favourable. Count Daston was losing. His face was bloodied. His bare chest and arms were lined with angry wounds, pouring with so much blood Hump wondered how long the man could keep fighting. He could not avoid the enemy attacks, for the moment he did, the demon lord’s attention would turn elsewhere. One spell was all it would take to unleash death upon the forces of Alveron.

The world shook as blessings and magic tore through it, but Count Daston held on. Within the walls, Hump caught glimpses of the ongoing battle, the Daston regiment pushing back the inner defences and creating an area for the rest of the army to follow through. Second by second, General Korteg’s army drew closer, until finally a war horn unleashed a great blast that stilled the essence of the world once more, the war god’s power spreading through the air in a wave, sweeping over the citadel. He swung his giant sword, the momentum carrying him into the air where he joined Count Daston on the walls at the demon lord’s flank. At the sight of him, Draevor sneered, launching himself into the sky before the two could reach them.

“Through the breach!” General Korteg roared. “Advance. Now is the time where we send these creatures to the hell they deserve!”

Hump hadn’t accounted for the time it would take for so many soldiers to pass through the wall. As his essence drained, he wondered if he could hold on long enough, when the wall to the right began to crumble. Looking up, he saw General Korteg plunge his blade into the top, wedging his sword deep within and carving it to pieces. The living wall screamed, but its protectors had retreated.

As the number of breaches increased, Lady Fentris called for the rest of them to release their spells. With the wall opened on both sides, she could maintain the tunnel alone without risk. As the army continued forward, Hump caught a glimpse of Wizard Aldric amongst their ranks. Above, Count Daston and General Korteg had left the walls and were directing the battle from the ground. The enemies defences were collapsing, but it left Hump wondering what more was in store for them. A dungeon this powerful would surely resist more strongly than this, and the demon lord and its greater demons were yet to fully commit to battle.

Hump fell against his staff, cold shooting through him as he reached a shivering hand for his pouch, struggling to find what he needed.

Celaine came to stand next to him as they watched the army push through the breaches. She reached into his pouch for him and pulled out an essence elixir. She pulled the cork out and gave it to him. He swallowed it in one go, the liquid spreading warmth throughout his body. Nishari landed beside them, huddling up against Hump’s leg.

“Are you alright?” Celaine asked.

Hump nodded. “Just need a minute.”

“That was amazing, Wizard Humphrey,” Aric said. The Chosen of Osidium was sat on the ground nearby drinking his own elixir. It was one of the few times Hump had seen a Chosen pushed to such exhaustion. “How did you do it?”

All the Chosen of Osidium looked at Hump. Even Lady Fentris appeared perplexed.

“The opal Count Daston gave me helped a lot,” Hump said, trying to avoid a proper explanation. “My connection to the earth felt stronger than usual.”

“Surely there is more to it than that, Wizard?” Lady Fentris asked. “That was… I couldn’t have salvaged that situation, and I am a sixth circle Chosen.”

Hump shrugged. “The situation was well suited to me. One of the perks of manifesting my soul is that it gives me more control of the essence in the environment. In a place as rich in essence as this, and with so much earth essence concentrated into the tunnel, I was able to use my magic more effectively.”

Lady Fentris was clearly not convinced by his explanation.

It was expected. His explanation was at best a half truth, and a Chosen as powerful as her would know enough about wizardry to understand there was more to the situation than Hump was telling her. Unfortunately for her, it was the best she would get. Spell Sculpting was likely a technique no Alveronian wizard had used in a very long time. If it was an invention of the first owner of the Book of Infinite Pages, perhaps never. With any luck, once the battle was over, this would be far from anybody’s mind and nobody would think to press further.

“Well, it saved us a lot of trouble,” Lady Fentris said. “I had one option left and it might have killed me.”

“I’m glad things didn’t come to that.”

She smiled. “As am I.”

What Hump didn’t tell her was that he’d also messed up. As much as he’d succeeded in keeping the breach open and made Spell Sculpting work, in the end he’d tried to do too much. Reflecting on it, he could see so many mistakes. Throwing all the essence and runes he could into Transform Earth in order to boost it into something it wasn’t. It was the same old weakness he’d always had.

‘You’re like a monkey with a hammer,’ the old man would have told him.

Brute forcing things had always been a problem of his. As an apprentice, he had lacked any sort of subtlety, but Hump liked to think he’d come a long way in that regard. His skill at manipulating essence was no longer a weakness, so he should not have tried to use Spell Sculpting in that way now, turning it into a muddled formation that drew far too much essence.

Yet in that attempt, something had clicked. Spell Sculpting wasn’t just an essence technique, it was a method to use the intuitive sense that came from the soul to manipulate magic with instinct and passion. A way to turn magic into an artform.

Instead of layering additional runes into a complex formation to try and brute force Transform Earth into a suitable spell, he should have carved out something new. That was the purpose of Spell Sculpting. To use his existing spells as a baseline and then chip away and manipulate its parts into something new.

He’d come close. In that moment, he’d used Wielder of the Winds once more. The earth had spoken to him, jumping to his will. While not linked directly, he suspected its use was key to his success. Combining the two might be the piece of the puzzle he’d been missing in his training. It was in that state where he was one with the winds that magic came most easily to him.

Such a concept was one he would need to think more on later. Their turn to push through the breach had come. The next phase of the Battle of the Infernal Halls was upon them.