Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 93

"Tanwyn, there!" she shouted, pointing her blade in the vague direction of the Cursed. Tanwyn shoved back an attack soldier and glanced over his shoulder, perspiration and some blood trickling into his eyes. He took a moment to focus on what she wanted him to, but once he did she saw the determination settle into his face and he nodded.

She called a few of the soldiers to her side, and they punched through the enemy forces, heading toward the Cursed. It was a losing battle if they were going by the traditional means of war, but in the grand scheme of things they were fighting hard enough to make slow ground. Thijs' men were not expecting such ferocity, and they stumbled backward as magic hurled into them and men crushed them with maces and swords.

Cole blasted a length of men from around her, clearing a path to where the Cursed hovered in the air like vultures, watching it all closely. She ran forward, already summoning fire to disintegrate the nearest monster. It crumbled into ashes, but its Cursed sent a blast of dark magic into a nearby soldier, sending him crashing to the floor with such force that blood splattered out of him like water from a drinking skin.

Cole tried not to focus on that, and instead rained down fire on the Cursed that came to meet them. She felt Tanwyn drawing what little magic could be stored in a normal Sparkstone, until he was out and resorted to using his blade against the monsters. The Eldritch with wings helped her take on the Cursed, blocking their dark magic and picking them off one by one.

As they cleared the air, Cole saw Gethwine standing a little bit away, clutching a sword and looking whiter than ivory. By her side, a few more Cursed hovered, and behind them was Thijs.

Cole's face burned at the sight of him, and before she knew it, she was engulfed in her own flames. Though they did not hurt her, they startled even her own men, who skittered away from her. Only Tanwyn stayed by her side, though not too close. She saw the heat that radiated from her flush his cheeks and wet his hair even more with sweat. He might get burned, yet he turned and looked at her, his face grim but determined. He nodded, his eyes saying a thousand things Cole could not understand. She nodded back, and then her eyes swiveled to where Thijs stood grinning at them with his arms crossed casually over his chest.

Cole's whole body shivered with anger as she ran forward, screaming out his name, putting all the pain of her motherless childhood and the years in the mines into her voice. But as she raised her hand to set out a sheet of flame, Cursed swooped in and blocked her target. One crumpled, but the others floated toward her, their black magic churning.

A monster appeared at her left, swiping at her with long claws. She caught it with her double-sword, shoving its claws up and over, causing it to lose balance. It stumbled backward, and she pressed her advantage, kicking out its legs and then bringing her sword down across its chest in a slicing motion. She didn't stop to check her damage, but instead spun out of the way of a Cursed's dark magic. She felt the sting of lightning across her skin, but it was faint. Just the brush of the magic getting too close. She sidestepped and then barrelled toward the Cursed, knocking into its lower torso with her shoulder and forcing it down onto the ground. It was more clumsy there, and couldn't move fast enough when she sent a blast of flame toward it and then finished it off with her sword.

Glancing down, she saw a one-handed battle ax in the belt of a fallen soldier, and she stooped down to grab it. She tossed her sword, and spun the ax in her hand, grinning at the way it felt like an extension of her arm. Years and years of wielding a pick-ax in the mines had given her body a special affinity for the form. She held the ax out, at the ready as a handful of human soldiers rushed her.

She spun out of the reach of the first, turning and slicing through his back, before moving on to the second and blocking his blow with the shaft of her ax. She used the momentum to swing his sword down and around, yanking it out of his hands. He tried to tackle her then, but she knocked him off his feet with her magic and then stomped on his stomach to stun him. The third and fourth soldiers landed a few blows on her with armored fists, which hurt about as much as taking boulders to her knee and chest. But she gasped through the pain and stumbled away before they could stab her through with their sword or dagger.

She was so focused on the two approaching soldiers, that she did not see the other one coming up from her back before it was too late. A sting in her side let her know he was there, and she managed to jump out of the way before his dagger went dangerously deep.

Tanwyn appeared then, stabbing through the soldier who had gotten her, and giving her the time to dance around the other two and end them as swiftly as she could.

They had a brief second then, as Thijs' soldiers hesitated, looking at their dwindling numbers and how many had already fallen. Most of them were fighting Cole's men in the other end of the cavern, and even the Cursed were being downed by her. A few of the soldiers were already pretending that they hadn't seen her, and went to help in areas where they would be a bit more successful.

Cole took the few seconds of respite to catch her breath and wipe the blood off her ax blade and on her leggings. Tanwyn glanced down at her side, concern etching his brow.

"You were hit," he whispered.

"It's nothing I can't handle," she answered, giving a brief smile. But really, the wound burned and pulsed with each beat of her heart. She thought perhaps the soldier had stabbed her a bit more than she originally assumed. But so far it didn't feel life threatening, and she wouldn't be able to stop until Thijs was finished.

She rolled her neck, preparing for the next wave. But when she looked up, she saw Gethwine pulling the magic from the air and into a ball of light.

Cole barely had time to throw up a shield before Gethwine's magic blast hit. It nearly knocked her off her feet, but its danger was dissipated by Cole's own magic. She barely had time to send off her own blast of fire, before Gethwine was showering down magic on both Cole and Tanwyn.

Cole had no problems blocking them and retaliating, but Tanwyn's magic was running low. His ring glowed dull, almost lightless, and Cole knew that with each shield he threw up, a huge chunk of the magic reserve drained. She couldn't let him keep taking the hits, which meant she needed to get up to Gethwine and turn the battle of magic into one of blades. And she needed to do it quickly. 

 While Gethwine sent magic Tanwyn's way, Cole used the brief second to reach out with her own magic and use it to grab one of the monsters still attached to a Cursed. With a surge of power, she yanked it over toward herself, causing it to fly through the air like a ragdoll. It dangled in the air, trying to swipe at her, but she made sure to keep it far enough away that its attempts were useless.

Gethwine, seeing the commotion, turned her attention on Cole now. Which meant that Tanwyn had some time to recover from all the magic he'd been forced to use. Cole couldn't sigh in relief, but she felt a spark of it in her chest.

Cole held the monster up in front of her with her magic, and slowly began to advance. Gethwine's magic exploded against the monster, killing it, but not destroying it, and not reaching Cole. It would only take a few more large blasts of magic to disintegrate the body enough to make it useless as a shield, but Cole planned on reaching Gethwine before that. She began to run.