Chapter 64 - The Fall
I twisted in the air, evading the first bolt. A wave of force erupted from my hand, deflecting the second. The rest arrived too late - I was already in free fall, my heavy armour accelerating my descent. They whizzed through empty air.
“Adda Invaerne,” I muttered as fast as I was able, and time slowed down. I spread out my limbs, slowing my descent.
The fall was not a real threat. I had a myriad of options to land safely, at least as gravity was concerned.
The situation on the ground was another matter entirely. Nilfgaard’s army was still largely stymied by the fires, their siege engines were not numerous or accurate enough to hit me while moving, and their ranged troops lacked the power to reach me. My own guards still remained, at a safe distance. I could even spot my horse. I would have to reward their loyalty later.
Unfortunately, Nilfgaard’s sorcerers did not share the issues of their mundane counterparts.
“Vaeltha,” I muttered, the hexagonal shield blocking a spear of flame, then a spear of stone, before having to withstand an assault from some sort of bright orbs.
My recharged reserves began rapidly diminishing, while the pain in my left hand reminded me of my injuries, but the assault wouldn’t be enough, and the Nilfgaardians must have realised it as well.
After Vaeltha blocked another wave of flame, I spotted Ironveil above me, having approached under the cover of the sorcerous attacks.
I flipped onto my back and angled myself upwards, staring at the accelerating sorceress.
I took a deep breath. Things happened quickly after that.
The air around me disappeared, and the hellish noise ceased.
I adjusted Vaeltha’s formula slightly and recast it in record time, mouthing the words in silence.
As Ironveil and her sword approached, the shield reappeared beneath me - still moving with me, but slightly slower than my body - slowing me down.
Instead of flying past and slashing me with her sword, Ironveil crashed straight into me.
The pain was immediate, but my armour held. The collision was far worse for the lightly armoured Nilfgaardian - or whoever she was. The shock of the impact made her drop her sword, and I breathed in air once more.
I stared straight into her mask and saw her widened eyes as I grabbed her tightly with one hand, unsheathing my dimeritium dagger with the other.
Then I stabbed straight for her eye. A thin, skin-tight barrier shattered the moment the dimeritium touched her mask, then the blade entered her eye.
Ironveil screamed as I twisted the dagger, trying to get to her brain, but I lacked the leverage necessary to push through.
She thrashed, her arms slamming against mine while she tried to kick me away from her, but I barely felt it through the metal.
“Let me go! LET ME GO!” she screeched.
“We’ll both die if you don’t slow our fall,” I lied, then extended my arm as much as I could, trying to ram the dagger through her skull. I felt it scraping against the bone, but it only made Ironveil scream louder. Of course, she couldn’t cast, but distracting her was to my benefit.
As we neared the ground I prepared to jump off, only for Ironveil to turn my tricks against me and cling to me like a tick.
However, unlike her, I did not have my ability to cast compromised.
“Eveagh Aard,” I chanted lightning quick, the force spell immediately throwing the enemy mage off. To my chagrin, Ironveil’s mind was more present then her panicked flailing had suggested.
Before I even finished casting Gaeth to slow my own fall, Ironveil had thrown the dimeritium dagger away. The next second, her wind manipulation spell was done.
I hit the dirt soon after. I groaned, feeling pain everywhere. That had not been enough time to properly slow down.
I shakily got to my feet, checking on Ironveil.
The woman had landed a dozen or so metres away from me. She lay on the ground on all fours, one hand futilely pushing against the eyehole of her mask while she supported herself with the other. I spared a glance behind me - as I had seen from the air, my bodyguards had spotted me and were moving to intercept us. Barring something unforeseen, they would arrive before the rest of the Nilfgaardians.
I grinned despite the pain.
“Dhu Muire,” I chanted, causing black tendrils to sprout around me and immediately reach for the enemy mage, ready to finish her.
Then I spotted the rapidly approaching spells. Two spears of flame and two of stone coming from the Nilfgaardians’ wings. Instead of snapping Ironveil’s neck, I redirected all of the tendrils towards defense.
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The stone spears were deflected, while the flaming ones were absorbed - the tendrils burned, but I could remake them, even if the expenditure wasn’t efficient.
By the time I was done, Ironveil was already on her feet, glaring at me with her one remaining eye. Before I could even think about going after the wounded sorceress again, I felt the Power stir.
The robed man riding at their leader’s side held his staff with both hands, raised in the air. His hood fell off, allowing me to just barely make out his bald head and goatee, though I paid little mind to his appearance.
The amount of Power he was gathering was… considerable.
I glanced behind me. My men were almost here.
When I looked towards Ironveil and the Nilfgaardian army behind her, a new sun had joined the one in the sky.
Above the sorcerer’s head, a giant ball of flame grew, concentric rings of gold rotating around it. It compressed before cracking like an egg.
The analogy proved all too apt a moment later, as a giant beak of flame struggled through the opening, quickly followed by the rest of the giant bird.
A single screech later, it was heading straight for me.
I recast Vaeltha in front of me, pumping the shield with as much Power as I dared.
The burning bird smashed into the shield a second later, bursting into flames that flowed around me.
I gritted my teeth as the seconds passed, the temperature rising uncomfortably high.
Just as I was thinking that I was safe, I felt something pierce the shield at two points.
My eyes widened as two metallic-looking needles flew straight through the flames and my shield before zeroing in on my head.
Time seemed to slow down. I could not release the shield, lest I be burned to a crisp.
The needless were faster than I was, but my enhanced reflexes were faster still. My gauntleted hands moved to intercept as I prepared to dodge.
My hand met one of the needles, slapping it out of the air.
The other dodged me, darting to the side, before going for one of the eyeholes in my helmet.
I ducked as quickly as I was able, though not fast enough to evade the projectile completely - the needle buried itself in the metal of my helmet.
Blood started flowing down my forehead, but I was neither dead nor in much pain, the projectile likely only nicking skin.
As if on cue, the flames winked out, revealing the battlefield once more, if even more scorched, and without Ironveil.
The sound of galloping horses attracted my attention, and I turned my head, yanking the needle out of my helmet as I did so.
My men were near, Edwyn and Aevinne at their fore, the latter leading my horse, while the former carried my staff.
It was time for me to retreat as well.
Braathens watched the retreating sorceress in consternation.
There was something wrong here. Degurechaff did not make sense. If he had not known anything about her, he would have assumed her to be a battle maniac and a veteran to boot.
That she managed to block his Phoenix was unfortunate, but he had expected it from her at this point. However, surviving Vigo’s Eye-piercer without casting any spells defied belief. The Toussainti sorceress was no novice, and the ousting of the Emhyrs gave her plenty of motivation to prove her loyalty. No, the fault did not lie there.
Degurechaff was an aberration.
This wasn’t something that a mere genius could explain. Her being a fresh graduate was an obvious fabrication, a conclusion everyone with eyes could have come up with after her success against Nazair.
What concerned Braathens was the second layer of obfuscation, because Degurechaff wasn’t simply a talented and experienced sorceress. Such would not have been enough to single-handedly stymie their plans here, and so she revealed more of herself.
Their information was disastrously wrong.
As Coehoorn had speculated, their spy network must have been compromised in some way. Someone in the North had managed to fool them all and plant an explosive and multi-layered trap in the form of an unassuming sorceress right under their noses.
The girl’s mistress was the obvious choice, but Tissaia de Vries' views were well-known and famously set in stone. The Archmistress would never mastermind a political ploy of such proportions. Even he, who had spent only a few years in the North, knew that.
There was only one other name that came to mind. A person both capable enough to pull it off and one with possibly some motivation to do so, though the machinations of that particular man were opaque at the best of times - even if they were undoubtedly political in nature.
Vilgefortz.
“What in the name of the Great Sun is that?”
Braathens blinked at the uncharacteristic bewilderment in the voice of his liege before noticing the Emperor’s gaze.
“It is a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, I believe,” he responded after a moment of thought, turning his gaze to the tear in the sky as well.
“Save the academics for the academics, Braathens. What does that mean, in practical terms?”
Braathens stroked his beard while the Emperor waited impatiently. His liege was a middle-aged man with a beard that was beginning to grey, and hair that was beginning to thin, adorned by a modest crown. His armour was thick, made of dark steel with the golden symbol of the Great Sun square in the middle of the chestplate. In his armour, he looked every bit the imposing general.
“That is hard to say, Your Imperial Majesty. In the short term, I suspect the temperature will be quite a bit warmer than it would otherwise be during autumn. In the long term,” he paused for a moment, “I suspect the tear will heal itself, though whether that will take months or years, I know not. I do not believe any of the other side’s denizens will be able to crawl through, if that is the concern. For them, a path isn’t enough.”
“So it is irrelevant,” the Emperor muttered. “We march on, then. Our losses are acceptable, and ridding Cintra of this ‘Degurechaff’ and her hovel will aid us greatly in the coming decades,” he paused, looking around at the other riders surrounding him, “Concur?”
The surrounding officers and generals muttered amongst themselves before one spoke up, “Cintran reinforcements will be arriving in days. Losing the Army Group North would be a crippling blow. Let alone Nazair, we could quite possibly lose Metinna.”
“You have known me for a long time, General Rhiar - have I ever been a gambler? I doubt Cintra, even when mustered, would be capable of truly defeating us. Forcing a retreat, perhaps, but defeat? They are a backward, barbarian people,” the Emperor spoke, examining the faces of his officers. “Besides, there are ways to slow them down.”
Seeing no more dissent, the Nilfgaardian machine began moving once more.