spread out. Quickly, he whispered to Habrok for him and Jorund to concentrate their
fire on those in the front of the attacking mass and to fire after he had released his
spell. Surprise will be with them for their initial defensive measures.
Covered by the rocks bordering the clearing, he let loose a rain of fire encased in thin
orbs. His trajectory calculations made on the fly. He just needed to adjust his angle
after seeing where they hit. The multitude of projectiles he released were the size of
baseballs. But considering the closeness of the enemy, he found it easier to infuse them
with a larger density of energy. After release, he quickly peered at the burned forest.
The balls impacted at the back of the most of the enemy, catching the incoming
stragglers. The visual effect was like a ground fireworks display. Explosions followed
one after the other, sometimes in close proximity. A miniature version of the bombing
runs of warplanes he saw on YouTube. Exploding as they hit, it was a cascade of
scorching death. The resulting smoke and debris made it difficult for him to see the
effect on the targets.
But he didn’t wait to see the gory mess, he immediately took a few steps back, minding
the position and angle of the release for the next volley. He released another hail of
fireballs, this time reducing the number but increasing the size with a slightly wider
dispersion. After that volley, he fired off another fiery shower. He went to peek again at
the field. The first fusillade had already landed and was in the process of exploding.
Same with the preliminary grenade-sized explosions, at first he couldn’t observe how
effective they were. The ground debris, the explosions and the flash of the blasts made
sure of that. But he could see that the target zone was engulfed in the deadly hail.
Then the second volley hit. The first explosions had barely died down when the next rain of fire started detonating.
Quickly turning to see what his two companions were doing while waiting for the
detonations to subside, he could see them working their bows at a furious pace, one or
two empty quivers already lying on the ground beside each archer. But the donation of
arrows by the dokkalfr was generous, he could still see some full quivers laid up and
distributed among the covering rocks. As he had instructed, each archer shot one or
two arrows then moved to another location. The attackers still had not been able to
respond to the revealed location of the defenders. Meanwhile, the clearing below was
filling up with downed shapes. Yet no enemy had climbed up the low cliff.
Looking back at the forest, he found it difficult to see through the smoke and the dust
swirling through the impact zone. Then he launched an area of effect attack with the
BLADES! spell for good measure. He spread the small arrow-head projectiles in a
dispersed formation as a lethal rain of transparent projectiles. He repeated the spell,
moving the targeted area further out. Then suddenly, fire and ice blasts started
exploding against the rocks bordering their clearing. Some mages had survived the
deadly rain. As he focused his eyesight, he could see the tell-tale aftermath of the
generated spells. This one may have to be done the hard way, he thought as he
released a strengthened lightning bolt at each place where he detected the cast spells.
After casting three of the suppressing spells, a fireball hit the top of the boulder where
Habrok was taking cover. The man flew back a few feet, landing on his back.
HABROK!
He ran to the downed ranger, hoping he was still alive. Reaching him, he found the
man stunned and sporting a few cuts on his head. His armor had absorbed some of the
force resulting from the blast. Luckily, the blast was not a direct hit on the man.
Otherwise, he would be picking up pieces instead of trying to help him. He cast a
healing spell and helped the man on his feet.
“You’re alright?” asked Tyler. The man nodded and then shook his head, evidently
trying to clear his noodle.
“Then get back there! You wouldn’t want Jorund to have all the fun, would you?”
They both ran back to their positions. Tyler was starting to feel fatigued. Not only in a
physical sense. The battle he was fighting on two fronts was draining him mentally. But
he observed that no arrows had fallen on their position. He must have eliminated the
archers. As he looked over his cover, he saw three robed figures had reached the edge
of the clearing. Nobody else was with them.
Shit. Mages. Powerful ones to be able to survive those showers.
But Tyler thought that whatever barriers or shields they had would have been weakened by the explosions. Rune shields need time to go back to full strength after
being battered as an infusion of energy was again needed to rebuild it. He doubted
they had the time to bring up their shields back up to full strength. With that, he
conjured a single blade the size of a large spearhead, making it thicker than usual and
infused it with fireball energy. He hoped his new idea will work. It had been inspired by
the shrapnel effect he saw decimating the dokkalfr. He fired the large single blade
against the mages who stood near each other. They must have combined their shields
to make it stronger, observed Tyler. The blade hit the mage in the middle and
exploded. Tyler immediately expanded and fortified the area of effect of the spell,
willing it to burn hotter. Some blade shards were flying off in different directions.
It may be overkill but Tyler wanted to make sure those mages die. He knew they were
lethally dangerous once they get into casting mode. When the blast subsided, nothing
was left of the mages. He breathed a sigh of relief. But his tiredness had worsened. His
vision was starting to be foggy, drifting from clarity to bleariness at times. The forest
was empty of enemies though he could see late-comers in the distance turning
back. With any luck, they didn’t see the change in defense position, he hoped. But he
was sure another group will attempt to attack again.
He called over the
