Everyone on the pitch looked over at the troll standing by the bell with a massive hammer.
He swung.
We tensed.
The bell rang.
And dazzling light blasted to life on the far side of the field.
As much as I hated to admit it, Vyns really was our secret weapon. No one thought a light wielder would be any good in a dominion match, but they forgot one crucial detail. Of all the elements, light was the easiest and fastest to summon, especially for a simple dazzling effect like this. Where our opponents would need a second or two to bring their elements to bear, Vyns didn’t.
The ladies on the far side of the pitch screamed and cursed.
Time to do our thing.
I summoned fire.
Yet even before I could get my shot off, Saldrea acted. Apparently, she didn’t need to see to throw massive stones in Izzy’s direction. The attack wasn’t perfect, since Izzy had been on the move. Still, one of the massive boulders caught Izzy a glancing blow and she gave a clipped cry as she was thrown back, hitting the ground hard, and rolling.
Fuck!
No!
But Izzy recovered and caught herself before going over the stone line marking the back half of our field.
“I’m good. Go!” she shouted. The pain in her voice belied her words, but still, the rest of us had a job to do.
I usually threw small balls of fire from my hands, but our plan hinged on me being able to do more. That’s what I’d been practicing yesterday and this morning.
I blasted fire at Neyalim, a massive cone, meant to hit her, no matter where she might go. If she dodged to one side or the other, I’d still hit her. Her only “safe” path was through the flames. A short jaunt through pain and she’d come out the front, relatively unharmed. But we were all counting on that being a counterintuitive move.
And it was.
She screamed, the sound shrieking up through a couple octaves as she tried to get out of the way of the fire and couldn’t, or so I assumed. I had no way to see her. I blasted that cone of flame for as long as I could, before collapsing from the effort of the attack, my fire flickering out.
Neyalim was off the pitch entirely, completely out of the game, badly burned. A healer ran to tend to her. I had little sympathy, knowing she’d happily have drowned any of us to win this match.
I retreated. I wouldn’t be able to do that again. It had taken too much out of me, but I’d done it, I’d taken one of their team out of the fight, right at the start of the match. Miraculously we were up by one.
Izzy’s grandmother had blasted water at Hana, hoping to do what I’d done to Neyalim, but the sylph, though she’d been pushed back, managed to fly up out of the tidal wave and stay in play.
Still… our plan was working!
Saldrea screamed in fury, and the sand at our feet whipped into a frenzy.
Fuck! I shielded my eyes.
Izzy shouted through the storm of sand, “Keep on the move, Saldrea knows where we are!”
I flung out my wings and launched myself into the air. Yesterday, Izzy had been practicing feeling through theground. I guessed Saldrea could do the same thing. She didn’t need her eyes to know where we were.
But Izzy and her grandmother didn’t have wings, stuck on the ground.
Unable to see anything I heard shouts and cries all over the field.
“Fuck!” came a distinctly male voice. “I can’t concentrate, light’s down!” Vyns shouted. I wanted to blame him, but I couldn’t. This sand was infuriating.
The sand abated, but it still took me a moment to blink my eyes open.
