Page 93 of Heartless Enemy

“—worldwalk,” Christian White finished as he suddenly appeared behind my back and rammed his knife into my throat.

It produced a metallicding.

Summoning my magic, I tried to skewer him with a spear. But by the time the spike had shot up from the ground, White was already gone.

He reappeared behind Shinji and rammed his knife into my fire mage’s back.

Yet again, a metallicdingsounded.

Confusion, and no small amount of annoyance, flashed across his pale features before he vanished into thin air. He tried the same thing to Tyler, who was busy shooting lightning bolts at the army across the grass while Chris blocked them both with wind magic, though this time he shoved his knife into Tyler’s side.

Another metallicding.

White’s lips pulled back in a snarl before he worldwalked away again.

I let out a smug laugh. It really was terribly difficult to stab people when they were wearing metal armor.

Gray light shone over the sea of armor-clad people around me. Every single person in my army, Eve included, was wearing light steel armor that protected their chest and back, neck, and head. It had taken me days to craft that many pieces, but I knew how Christian White operated. If I had just let everyone wear their normal leathers, White would’ve worldwalked back and forth across the battlefield and simply stabbed people in the back before they had time to notice him. Just like he was trying to do now.

First, I had created standard pieces that had all been the same size. Then, once that very time-consuming part was done, I had simply adjusted each piece of armor to fit the person it was on. For my experienced battle mages, that had been done before we left the city this morning. Everyone else’s had been done yesterday, because we simply wouldn’t have had time today, which meant that they’d had to sleep in theirs. Not the most comfortable night, certainly. But it was better than bleeding out on a field today.

Frustration shone on White’s face as he worldwalked through my people, trying to sneakily stab them while they were busy shooting magic at his army, only to each time be stopped by the sleek metal sheet that fit snugly around their chest inside their clothes. Now that he was this close, he could clearly see the neck and head protection that everyone wore, but he apparently needed to try to stab everyone through the ribs as well, even though it was completely futile.

I tried to anticipate his movements, to throw a sharp spear through his own throat when he materialized, but he was moving quickly and without any clear pattern. It made it impossible to guess where he would show up next. He might not be able to assassinate me or my people, but we weren’t able to kill him either.

“Sir,” Tyler suddenly said, his voice pulsing with urgency.

Snapping my gaze back towards the army across the field, I found a wave of fire roaring across the grass. It was so massive that it must have been created by simultaneous attacks from every fire mage in White’s army.

“Water shields,” I called.

“Water shields,” Eve echoed farther to the right.

She was standing at the very edge of the first row of dark mages. A position I had tried to talk her out of. But she had insisted that she needed to be close to the constables so that she could make sure they knew what to do as well. At least she was standing with my dark mages instead of those fools in their white and gold uniforms.

Sloshing sounds rippled through the cool air as a mass of overlapping water shields shot towards the wave of fire. They came from both our side and the constables’ side, which meant that the white boots had actually listened to Eve. Apparently, survival trumped politics every time.

The magic forces slammed into each other in a violent collision that sent hissing steam exploding across the landscape.

As soon as the water had struck, I yanked up a massive wall of metal. It speared through the thick white mist before it had even finished forming.

The moment it went up, Eve called, “Wind! To the right.”

A second later, a hail of lightning bolts crashed into my metal wall.

Deafening booms ripped through the air, and my shield buckled in several places. But nothing made it through.

However, the wall only protected my side of the battlefield. The white boots were on their own.

White bolts crackled through the air towards the constables, but Eve’s shouted order saved almost all of them. Their overlapping wind blasts redirected the lightning to the right, causing it to miss most of their troops.

“Counter explosions,” I called. “Now!”

I dropped my shield.

Thick mist still covered the grasslands between us, and we took full advantage of that.

Orange and purple light streaked through the air as my explosion mages shot attacks towards White’s forces the second that my shield was down. They looked almost like fireworks. Until they exploded into the unsuspecting ranks of dark mages on the other side, that is, and screams of pain tore through the cool air instead.