I raised my Flame Shield and shot a blast of fire straight into the bodyguard’s face. He closed his eyes, and his skin turned to stone a moment before the flames hit. While he wasn’t looking, I swept the Sundered Heart around, aiming for his shoulder.
Another weapon blocked the strike. I turned to see the bodyguard who I had mired in Mud Entrapment. He was dripping in mud but was otherwise unharmed, and his face was screwed up in fury. For a moment, we were back to two-to-one odds. Then, the third guard appeared around the Plank Pillar.
To my left, Kegohr was still locked in combat with the female guard. Their blows filled the air with resounding clangs as heavy weapons slammed against each other again and again. Neither seemed able to gain enough advantage to finish the other off.
Then, fire flared in Kegohr’s eyes. The flames spread across his face, down his body, and out along his arms and legs. From somewhere inside him, he had found the Vigor to power the Spirit of the Wildfire once more.
His next blow hit the shaft of the bodyguard’s warhammer. The wooden pole had been reinforced with bands of steel that should have made it near unbreakable, but as Kegohr’s blow hit, there was a crack, and the shaft split. The bodyguard was left staring in shock at two splinted ends of wood.
Kegohr gripped her head in his massive palm and tossed her into the guards that had me surrounded. Her body struck the guard nearest to me with a sickening thud, and the two went tumbling across the dirt, neither getting up.
Kegohr charged toward me and arrived with an almighty roar, like a wild beast unleashed. Blows rained around him in a berserker fury that scattered the bodyguards.
“Go find Targin,” Kegohr growled. “Leave these to me.”
I didn’t want to leave my friend facing two Augmenters of incredible skill, but the choice wasn’t just about him. With Targin after them, Vesma and Kumi were also in terrible danger. These bodyguards might be tough, but Targin came from the same stock as Ganyir and had been through the same upbringing and training. With the stone golem gone, there could hardly be a more deadly opponent here.
I broke clear of the fight and ran through the village, heading in the direction I’d last seen Targin go.
The sand-sunken village, already battered by the ravages of time and the Vigorous Zone, had been further devastated by a fight between multiple Augmenters. Chunks were missing from buildings, blown clear by magic or knocked out by wild weapon swings. Crimson patches of sand spread out from fallen bodies as the blood stained the ground. The earth beneath my feet shook from the impacts of earth magic.
A pair of Hyng’ohr soldiers blocked my path, both holding bronze-headed two-handed maces. I drew the Depthless Dream Trident and came at them with dual spirit weapons.
The first of the soldiers brought his mace back and swung it in an exaggerated arc. I caught it on the Depthless Dream, and the shaft slid between two prongs of my trident, locking the weapons together. The soldier pushed, and I pushed back, each straining to wrench the weapon from the other’s hands.
The other soldier took the opportunity to try to get a hit in, but I blocked his attack with the Sundered Heart, then swung low. He screamed as my flaming sword sliced through his leg, and he fell to the ground, clutching the cauterized stump.
The first soldier pushed harder at his mace, trying to force me into a retreat. I went with the movement and swayed back a single step. As he came forward, I brought up the Sundered Heart and stabbed. The tip of the spirit weapon easily punctured his armor, and the blade slid through his chest from front to back. The mace fell from his grip and dropped to the ground a moment before his body did.
I freed my trident from the mace and ran on, still looking for Targin. Another soldier, showing more courage than sense, leaped at me from the side with a swing of his mace. I ducked beneath the blow, did a forward roll clear of his next swing, and came back to my feet facing him. He stood staring wide-eyed at me and my two weapons, one coated in flames, the other in frost. When I swung high with the Sundered Heart, he raised his weapon to parry the feint, but I impaled him on my trident’s prongs.
“Well done,” Yono said in my head. “Let the trident’s shape guide you and help you fight with a flow like the ocean.”
“Or you could just stab people with the pointy end,” Nydarth retorted.
Their words barely even registered in my mind. I had finally caught sight of Targin. He was standing on the roof of a pagoda from where he could survey the battle zone. Kumi and Vesma had obviously evaded his sight until now, but it was clear he was scanning the battleground for them. He held a sword high, and there was a wild look in his eyes.
I ran toward him, through the madness of the battle. Ganyir and Tahlis were nearby, battling a band of Augmenters. Sand flew around them, and the ground shook as both sides used the earth element against each other. A building collapsed as a shock wave hit it and sent more dust into the air.
Ganyir grabbed an opponent by the head and hurled him bodily at the others, then jumped in after, his arrival shaking the ground beneath them. Tahlis seemed to blink in and out of existence as he appeared from the ground behind a shocked soldier, ran him through, then disappeared again.
Vesma and Kumi ran out of a nearby building, pursued by snarling Hyng’ohr warriors. Blood was running down Vesma’s arm, and Kumi was fumbling with a waterskin as
