Kegohr let out an almighty roar the moment the new attackers arrived. Flames flashed across his skin and left a bright blaze burning in his eyes as the Spirit of the Wildfire flowed through him.
“Let’s start the party!” he bellowed as he charged into the oncoming group.
Kegohr hit the initiates like a bowling ball slamming into a set of pins. Men and women flew into the air as the weight of the half-ogre crashed into them. A couple kept their feet, only to be felled by a sweep of his club. Kegohr pulverized the skull of one before he crushed another against the wall.
I moved up to cover Vesma’s back. The initiates surrounded us, but their numbers were falling as we wore them down. They were no match for better-trained Augmenters with something to protect.
I used an Ash Cloud to blind the nearest attacker, then ran him through while he swung blindly to fend me off.
“More, mighty Swordslinger,” Nydarth moaned. “Give me their blood.”
“Where’s Labu?” Vesma asked as she parried a spear. “We shouldn’t leave one of our own behind.”
“He’s not one of our own,” I said as I kicked an Augmenter’s legs out from under her. “He betrayed us to the guild. This whole thing was a trap.”
“Thought he seemed like an asshole,” Vesma said. “Next time, just kill him.”
She sprang into the air, kicked an opponent in the head, and landed back to sweep her spear into another attack.
We pushed along the corridor and cut down a path to make our way toward the exit. A constant supply of guild warriors kept appearing and slowed our progress. However many we dealt with, there was always a fresh fighter behind them.
“Kill the Wilds!” one of them bellowed as he hurled an Ice Spear at Kegohr. The half-ogre deflected it with his Flame Shield, and the half-melted slush spattered across the wall behind him.
“Death to the tainted ones!” another initiate shouted as she leaped at Kumi.
Nunchucks spun in the crazed initiate’s hands as Kumi danced aside, darted inside the woman’s guard, and knocked her hand away. The princess sliced her opponent across the shoulder. The enemy’s weapon fell to the floor just as Kumi drove her blade home again and left the howling opponent against the wall to try to staunch the flow of blood.
We’d cleared the enemies around us, but more clustered at the end of the corridor and barred our progress. They flung frozen projectiles, so many at once that it seemed like a rain of icicles. I brought up a Flame Shield to protect Kumi at my back before I joined Vesma and Kegohr in blocking the spears. I used Flame Empowerment to increase the size of their shields, and our barriers almost covered the entire corridor except for a narrow gap, and an Ice Spear managed to slip through it. The projectile hit Vesma in the shoulder, and she screamed in pain.
“Here.” Kumi’s magic scooped up the water of melted ice spears and turned it into a magical balm that settled onto Vesma’s shoulder and started to heal the wound.
The enemy readied another hailstorm of ice at the end of the corridor
“This way!” Kegohr thundered down a side passage, and the rest of us ducked out of view of the spear throwers.
“This isn’t the way we came,” I said.
“No, no, no,” Kegohr said. “It ain’t looking like we can get out that way, but I found other routes while we were hanging around the guild house. This should take us out near the main gate.”
“You want us to fight our way out through the main entrance?” Vesma asked. “That’s crazy! There’ll be guards.”
“There are guards here. You got a better plan?”
“I’m right beside you, big guy,” I said. “We’ll smash through them together.”
We ran down corridors and around spiral staircases. Servants stared in confusion as we raced past them.
“Something wasn’t right about those people we fought,” Kumi said as we paused at a junction, trying to get our bearings. “They were seething with hatred of Wilds. Not simple opposition but hatred. Real and serious hatred.”
“That ain’t that rare,” Kegohr said. “Remember Hamon and his buddies.”
“They weren’t this bad,” I said. “And there weren’t that many of them.”
“Trust me,” Kegohr said. “That shit gets everywhere. Now, come on; this way leads out.”
I wasn’t going to argue. He knew what it was like to be a Wild, while I had just seen a little of how they were treated. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something darker and more twisted had taken hold in this guild. And that Horix was behind it.
More Augmenters came at us in another corridor, greeted us with another hailstorm of frozen knives, and enchanted their blades with icy power.
“Kill the Wilds!” the leader shouted. “Drive out the taint.”
They readied their Ice Spears, but before they could let fly, I closed the distance between us. Instead of pulling up a Flame Shield, I strengthened my Frozen Armor. Thin, chitinous plates became solid masses, like the armor of a knight. Their attacks shattered against my armor and exploded into bursts of snowy crystals.
I ran into the center of the group as the Sundered Heart sung like Death’s own scythe. I cut a leg out from under one of the initiates, and she fell to the ground, screaming as her blood turned the tiled floor red. The next one had a thick set of helmeted Frozen Armor, and my blade bounced off it, leaving a narrow dent of half-frozen slurry behind. I brought my other hand up, called forth the power of wood, and sprayed stinging splinters into the eyegaps of the helmet. She yelped in pain and staggered as my companions came to my side. Kegohr’s mace caught her in the side, smashed her armor, and broke her against the wall.
An Augmenter lunged at me with a wickedly barbed Ice Spear. My armor
