The Cursed Extra

Chapter 158: [3.31] When Magic Stops Working

"Fire solves most problems. The problems it doesn’t solve are usually the ones that kill you."

***

Rhys planted his feet wider. Shifted his grip on the spear. Tried to remember everything his father had taught him about fighting multiple opponents.

Keep moving. Use their size against them. Don’t let them flank you. Control the distance. Make them come to you on ground of your choosing.

All advice that was useless when you were trapped in a tunnel with nowhere to run.

The walls pressed in on either side. The ceiling was low enough that he’d scraped his head on it twice during the goblin fight. Behind him was the stone barrier he’d raised to protect Jorik and Petra. In front of him was death in three forms.

His father had never taught him what to do when there was no way out. Maybe because the old man had never faced a situation like this. Or maybe because he’d known that some fights couldn’t be won. Only delayed.

"Petra," he called over his shoulder. Didn’t take his eyes off the advancing hobgoblins. Their yellow eyes tracked his every movement. Their nostrils flared as they drew in his scent. "Whatever you’ve got left, now would be good."

"Already on it!"

He heard her scramble to her feet behind the stone barrier. Heard the sharp intake of breath that meant she was gathering her mana for one last desperate gambit. The air behind him grew warm. Then hot. Then almost unbearable as she pulled at whatever reserves she had left.

Fire bloomed behind him. Cast wild shadows on the tunnel walls.

The heat washed over his back, and for a moment he allowed himself to hope. Petra was talented. Everyone said so. Her fire magic had carved through the goblin horde like a scythe through wheat.

Maybe she could do the same to these things.

The blast of flame that erupted from her hands was impressive. A roaring torrent of orange and red that should have turned the entire tunnel into a furnace. Rhys felt the heat wash over his back. Heard the whoosh of superheated air rushing past his ears.

The light blazed so bright it cast the hobgoblins in sharp relief. Their shadows stretched long and black against the tunnel walls. Even the shaman seemed to recoil for just a moment.

Then the creature raised its staff.

The fire died.

Not gradually. Not flickering out like a candle in the wind. It simply ceased to exist. Dissolved into wisps of harmless smoke that dissipated into the cold air.

One moment there was an inferno hot enough to melt stone.

The next there was nothing but ash and the fading smell of sulfur.

Rhys had never seen anything like it. He’d seen fire mages dueling before. Seen them counter each other’s spells with opposing forces. That was different. That was magic meeting magic. Two forces canceling each other out.

This was magic meeting something older. Something that didn’t follow the rules.

"No." Petra’s voice came out small and broken. All her usual fire replaced by the hollow sound of someone watching their last hope crumble. "No, that’s not... that’s impossible."

The shaman’s lipless mouth stretched into what might have been a smile. Revealing teeth like blackened needles. Row after row of them, going back further than a normal mouth should have allowed.

"Magic-fire is nothing-weak before the old-ancient ways, flame-child. Your power-strength feeds our hunger-need."

Rhys filed that away for later. If there was a later. The creature was saying something important about the nature of its magic. About where its power came from.

Knowledge was a weapon too. His father had always said that. Even if you couldn’t use it yourself, you could share it with someone who could.

If any of them survived to share anything.

The shaman raised the staff higher. The bone fetishes began to spin on their sinew strings. Moving faster and faster until they became a blur of white and yellow. The green light grew brighter. Cast everything in a sickly radiance that made the goblin corpses look like they were starting to twitch.

The tiny hands on the staff reached outward. Fingers straining toward the three humans as if desperate to touch them.

Then the creature pointed its staff at Jorik.

"Mor-thak-gul."

The word hit the air like a blow. Rhys felt something cold and oily brush against his mind. Like fingers made of grave dirt trying to worm their way inside his skull. His thoughts scattered for a moment. Replaced by images of dark places and wet things that squirmed in the earth.

He shook his head. Forced the sensation away through sheer will.

But it wasn’t aimed at him.

Jorik’s scream started human and ended as something else entirely.

The sound tore through the tunnel. Echoed off the stone walls and multiplied until it seemed like a dozen people were screaming at once. The big man’s body convulsed against the stone barrier Petra had built around him. His back arched until Rhys was sure his spine would snap.

The sounds coming from his throat weren’t words anymore. They weren’t even sounds a human throat should have been able to make.

The leg that had been trapped under the fallen rock began to change.

The skin turned from pink to gray to black as something spread up from the wound like spilled ink. Rhys watched, horror and rage warring in his chest, as dark veins crawled up Jorik’s thigh. Visible even through his torn pants. The flesh around them seemed to wither and collapse. As if whatever was inside his blood was eating the muscle from within.

The smell hit them next.

The sweet, cloying stench of meat left too long in the sun. Mixed with something sharper that burned the inside of Rhys’s nose. Rot and corruption and something else. Something alchemical that didn’t belong in any living body.

Whatever the shaman had done to Jorik, it was eating him alive from the inside out.

Rhys had watched people die before. It came with growing up on the border. He’d held his uncle’s hand when the man bled out from a spear wound. Had helped carry the bodies after the worst raids.

Death was a familiar companion in Blackwood Glade.

This was worse.

This was death being used as a weapon. Being wielded like a blade.

This was wrong.

"Stop it!" Petra’s voice cracked as she scrambled over the barrier. Her hands glowed with what little mana she had left. The light was feeble compared to what she’d summoned before. Barely more than a candle flame dancing on her fingertips. "Stop it, you bastard!"

The shaman’s attention turned to her. Its eyes narrowed with something like amusement. The creature tilted its head to one side. Examined Petra the way a cat might examine a particularly bold mouse.

"The flame-child wishes to join her friend-companion in feeding-nourishing the earth-stone? This can be arranged-granted."

It began to raise the staff again.

And Rhys moved.