Shard

  As they waited, children tinued making trips to and from the wall, leaving caches of stones, arrows, and clubs ying around for the defenders. Eventually, a cry went out as movement was seen in the distahe children rag back away from the walls and into the vilge. Slowly the line of bck moving from the forest became denser and moved closer.

  To everyone’s surprise, a human figure appeared among the swarm, swinging a scythe with wild uncoordinated swings, running bad forth through the horde as it howled like a mad beast. Amilya shook her head sadly, remarking, “At least Norman decided to be helpful after all.”

  A moment ter, Amilya held her hand up, calling forth an immense orb of light, then hurling it up into the air where it hung motionless, illuminating the field. Watg the Bck Tide approach, Amilya waited for them to cross the firebreak before the pins to be ignited. Several archers lit their arrows afme and began loosing them in a widely scattered volley. While not all maintaiheir fme, and not all spread, several did, filling the grassnd with numerous patches of fire that rapidly expanded.

  Uerred, the ants tiheir path forward, maing caught in the spreading fmes and falling. Others succeeded in esg the fmes, scattered remnants advang towards the vilge. Without needing instrus, those with slings began hurling stone bullets into the ants, causing them to explode in sprays of hemolymph.

  As the denser portion of the swarm advanced, mages began their work, ks of stone flying forth to explode into sprays of shrapnel, and bolts of fme leaving scorched craters. Dawn began spinning up her array of fmes, while wind mages jumped down from the wall along with Amilya and Niphru. As they nded, another volley of magic flew overhead, rapidly thinning the horde.

  Niphru began his work, calling up a dozen motes of fme and pressing them as he sent his foxfire ahead as a ribbon. Looping the fme around dozens of ants, they began popping from the heat of the fme. Wind bdes began shooting forth from the mages to his sides, leaving legless bodies to colpse to the ground, slowing the advanbsp; Finishing his preparations, Niphru began spinning the spee until they began r and waved the disk through a clump of ants, watg as they crackled and popped, flying into the air as the fme ring tinued unimpeded.

  As an especially dense expanse of ants made its way forward, Amilya flipped her staff over, pnting the head against the ground. She closed her eyes for a moment before sending forth a blinding beam of light just barely above the ground, scything it to the side in a y degree arc, leaving vast numbers of ants to colpse to the ground, where they hadn’t simply burned from her wrath. Niphru took note and hurled his disk of fme through the remains, killing off as many of them as he could before the fmes sputtered out.

  Another volley of fmes and rocks arched overhead before smming into the tide of ants, leaving rge holes in the carpet of bodies. Seeing them reag the lines of wood chips, Amilya shouted to ighem. Seds ter, a volley of burning arrows nded among the lines of wood, setting them alight even as the ants tried to climb over them.

  The warriors of the Church of flict shifted a bit while gripping their clubs, watg the ants ie themselves. For several minutes, only a trickle of ants made it through, being pulped by projectiles from the wall behind them. As the fmes died down, they saw the beast that was Norman fairly close by, carving a swath through the carpet of ants. However, there was a group er ants showing up in the distance, moving nearby but not into bat. They rose up on their back two pairs of legs, curling their rear beh them aing loose a spray of liquid that floated far enough to cover Norman.

  With a scream, he whirled, getting sprayed oher side as well, then began carving a path to the new ants. As everyoched, his skin began dissolving, ging from a slightly shimmering bronze color into bloody red flesh. He plowed into the group of ants, chopping them into pieces, only for a rge ring of simir ants to rise up a the process.

  Norma wild, screaming in agony as he stomped through the horde swinging his scythe without rest. Several mages tried to support him, only to find they cked the rao reach him, helplessly only able to watch as he finally colpsed and was swarmed by the ants. Moments ter, the pile of ants moved on, leaving behind a scattered pile of bones.

  Fog baear the walls, Niphru noticed simir ants approag, and began spinning up another set of fire motes, just to see bolts of fme zip by at insane speed, smming into the ants with enough force to topple them over as they burst. Fortunately, it appeared the acid also burhe ants, and the cluster that detonated cleared out a rge group around them. Niphru looked back to the wall, seeing Dawn hurling bolt after bolt of fme towards the hreat, others around her fog on the normal ants.

  As the fmes began r, he turned back to the swarm, finding a ded hurling the disk towards them, then running his ribbon of foxfire through anroup. The ants that got by began being crushed by the warriors, clubs fshing in every dire, and even boots smming into other ants that got too close. After her quick rest, Amilya let loose another beam of light, searing a vast swath of ants once again.

  ing up with a new idea, Niphru began spinning up fmes again, this time around his foxfire ribbon. As it began r, he focused on keeping them alighehe ribbon through a mass of ants, watg the fmes punch holes through them, setting their insides alight. As the wind mages and warriors supported the sides of their formation, Amilya tio burn through rge groups of ants as quickly as she could. Eventually mages started dropping back as they expended all their mana stones.

  Niphru was almost out as well when he heard a shout from the wall, whipping his head around just in time to see someone collide with Dawn, sending them both tumbling off the wall straight into a mound of ants that were attempting to scale the wall.

  Time slowed to a crawl, fmes dang around Dawn as she fell, her head whipping to face the ground, direg the bolts below her where they detonated with dull whumphs. A guard on the wall lunged for her, missing by barely an inbsp; Two warriors hurled themselves from their positions as rapidly as they could towards where the two fell, but it clearly wouldn’t be fast enough.

  Despairing, he hurled his foxfire back, but it was extended far enough ahead that he could tell it wouldn’t make it in time either. Frantic to try to do anything to help, he recalled what it felt like when he first created his foxfire, willing fme to appear again, and pulling something from himself into it. Screaming in pain, he kept pulling as he felt a deep sensation of loss. Dawn collided with the pile of ants, crushing many that her fmes hadn’t killed, though it wasn’t enough, as she sank into the pile and they swarmed over her.

  Niphru’s screams ged pitch as he felt the pain and terror through their link, f himself into the desire for fme with even more urgentil agony blinded his mind. With o wail, he felt himself torn from his body, which staggered oep and colpsed to the ground. Ung for the moment, as he realized he was trolling two sets of fme instead of one, he eled all his rage and fear into the closest one, feeling it shift into an indest white even as he hurled it towards Dawn.

  Barely able to think at all, he focused on nothing but saving Dawn as the streak of white-hot fme smmed into the mound, detonating into a massive bst that sprayed far above the wall. As his vision faded to bck, he saw nothing but fmes, even the palisade wall burning from the iy of the inferno he had unleashed. With a st burst of fear and despair, he realized the fme burned everything, and he had thrown it right onto his precious Dawn, wailing internally as everything faded away.