She was waiting for us.
Just like we’d been spying on her, it was no surprise to me that she’d known I was coming. With the massive number of people coming and going on campus, there had to have been spies for her as well. We hoped they didn’t knowallour secrets.
Valnea had created an opening for us. Her forces arrayed in a semi-circle behind her. There were dragons, some in dragon form, others in human form with wings out. Elves stood perfectly arrayed in rows, all in fancy-looking armor, which was far stronger than it appeared. She easily had five thousand in her force. We had barely five hundred.
Being outnumbered ten to one meant I needed to defeat the false queen as fast as possible and hope her forces capitulated once she’d been dealt with.
Valnea herself, in ornate golden armor, strode forward, alone and confident.
Something was up. I hadn’t expected her to actually challenge me one on one. She had to know how easily I’d defeated her daughter. She was strong, but by all reports, I was stronger.
I waved a hand to keep the bulk of my forces back. My guys wouldn’t let me do anything alone, so I didn’t even try to leave them behind.
“Just… stay back a little,” I asked them. So it wouldn’t look like all of us were advancing to fight Valnea.
I got a good look at the false queen as we drew close. She was the spitting image of Saldrea, her daughter, or rather, Saldrea was the spitting image of her. Golden blond hair, falling in perfect waves around a heart-shaped face. Tall and slender, a model’s figure with perfect, pale skin and eyes like sapphires. Objectively… she was attractive, but any man who fell for her charms had to hate himself, because there was cruelty behind those blue eyes. What was worse was the depth of sadistic experience in those eyes. She wasn’t untested in her cruelty. She’d lived a long life, and I guessed she’d employed all manner of ways to make others suffer. There was also madness there, a raving surety of her superiority.
“Surrender,” I offered. “Save the lives of your people.”
Her face twisted. “What do I care for their lives?”
I should have expected that.
“Then surrender to save your own life,” I said, voice low and lethal.
She laughed. Oh yeah, she definitely had something up her sleeve.
“Why would I do that? I’m in no danger. Did you think I’d come to this battle unprepared?”
No, I didn’t. I just didn’t know exactly what she had planned.
She sneered as she continued. “I did my homework on you and your pathetic force. You’re weak in air magic. So, tell me, you little royal slut, who’s going to protect your minds?”
And that seemed to be the signal for her forces. They began to move, but more importantly, a host of sylphim appeared out of nowhere. From my — admittedly limited — studies, I’d known some sylphim could use a form of invisibility, where they masked themselves from perception,an intricate mental trick, which was not supposed to be common. I now suspected those lessons had been false and the commonality was much higher but kept secret, given the thousand or so sylphim which appeared all around us, surrounding my force. They even cut me off from my guys.
Fuck!
I charged Valnea, but even as I did, mental claws raked my mind. Horrible images, illusions, played before my eyes. They weren’t real, but that didn’t stop them from distracting me. It was hard not to be distracted with my worst fears displayed in terrifying high definition. My attention was yanked away and tossed about like a ball of yarn in the paws of a cat. I stumbled, faltering.
And that’s when Valnea attacked.
Whatever else she might be, the false queen was a vicious warrior. I may have been stronger than her in raw power, but her years of experience were evident in how she swiftly bound my feet in earth to keep me in place, then immediately followed up with her sword, combined with an attack of razor-sharp stone shards.
With my mind besieged, my stone wall defense was too late, she’d already carved into me, a nasty slash across my abdomen from below my left breast to my right hip. The stone shards dug into my skin, a rain of pain slicing deep. My wall didn’t even get all the way up before Valnea stamped it back down. All I could think to do was heal myself while surging my endurance, my toughness and fortitude. That pushed some of the stone shards out and mended most of the gash on my stomach, but Valnea didn’t let up, and it didn’t matter how strong I was. If I stayed on the defensive, I’d lose this fight.
I couldn’t afford to lose, nor could I afford to wait. Thelonger I waited to defeat Valnea, the more of my forces would suffer and die.
But with my mind under attack, I could barely think. I hardly knew which way was up. Attacking would be impossible. I needed some relief, an out, an edge, and I couldn’t find one. When I risked a glance to see if my guys would be coming to my aid, what I saw horrified me more than the visions playing around me.
The sylphim must have been inside their minds as well. They all stood stunned or fought invisible foes.
Fuck!
Why hadn’t we accounted for this overwhelming attack on our minds?
That oversight might cost us everything.
BAYN
