Bloodflowers Bloom (The Astral Wanderer Book 2), D'Artagnan Rey [essential reading .txt] 📗

and squirmed in the fiery serpent’s grasp. “It’s taking all my mana simply to fight against it.”

“I have…I have a way out,” Asla shouted and the boys immediately looked at her. “I cannot promise I will be able to help after but I can do this much.”

“Asla, what are you talking about?” Devol’s question got a response from her in the form of action. Her anima flared again and the cat silhouette that would appear around her body during intense fights began to solidify and become more than a mere shadow. The snake seemed to weaken as she began to push it apart. The form of a tiger or panther surrounded her now and it dug its claws into the snake and ripped it apart. Asla snapped her head toward the serpent’s, her fangs protruding, and bit the creature’s head, yanked it back, and ripped it off. The rest of it disintegrated and released them to fall heavily.

“Asla!” Devol yelled and stared at where she lay unmoving on the ground. Jazai went to examine her quickly and nodded to him that she was breathing at least.

“No!” The two turned to Salvo, who had begun to create a fireball. “No, no, no!” The swordsman snatched Achroma up as the man fired volley after volley at them. He knocked each fiery missile to the side or into the air. As the fire magi prepared to launch a much larger fireball, he reared and held the blade up, then swung it forward. It immediately brightened and created an extended blade of light that cleaved through the infernal orb and struck Salvo’s wand.

A loud crack heralded the shattered pieces of the red crystal that fell around the man, and a furious, pained scream followed. As the fireball erupted to scatter fire around the area, blood spilled from under Salvo’s mask and a large wound stained his shirt. Majestics were connected to their users and their destruction was the owner’s pain. The man fell to one knee, his breathing ragged, and for the first time in their fight, he truly looked vulnerable. He turned to Devol and the mask began to pulsate again as the features shifted into an expression of wrath.

“Jazai, you and Asla get out of here,” he said quietly and spun his sword.

“No way. I’m not leaving until I see this bastard fall.” Jazai replied although he took a moment to look at the unconscious wildkin. Devol realized that staying might be for the best at that moment.

“Then watch over her,” he requested, drew a deep breath, and readied his sword. “I will end this.”

Salvo uttered another angry yell and smacked his wand into the ground. Even without the crystal, a column of flame erupted around him. Jazai summoned a shield as the swordsman held his blade up and occasionally deflected errant blasts of fire.

“He’s losing it!” the diviner shouted and strengthened his shield. “Way more than he has already.”

“I can’t fight him at this range.” Devol began to move forward. “I need to get in close!”

“Then take this!” Jazai tossed him a vial of the blue liquid he had poured on himself. “It’s for magical burns. Pour some on your hands and lower arms and you may be able to buy more time to get a good strike.”

Devol nodded, popped the top of the vial, and applied the liquid as suggested. He tossed the vial aside and lunged toward Salvo, who now turned to face him. The fire magi swung his wand and the column around him spread wider. The boy planted his blade into the ground as he had seen Farah do. He created a barrier in front of him that took the hit but the force was still enough to almost knock him back if he hadn’t had such a tight hold on his majestic.

Quickly, he yanked it out of the ground and continued his onslaught. Salvo, at this point, merely slung his wand around almost as if it were a blade to cast random fireballs and blasts of flame in his direction. The young swordsman dodged easily or parried most of these until he finally moved close enough for him to charge his blade and make a desperate move to end this by driving it into his adversary. But before it could connect, a massive wall of fire formed in front of the psychotic magi and held his blade in place as it formed into the same crystal-like form as the snake earlier.

The boy was able to pry his sword out of the fire and he jumped back. The serpentine shape wavered and shifted into what he had stared at during this entire fight. He grimaced as it took on the form of the demon mask, although this one had an open maw where orbs of fire danced within.

A voice spoke but it did not sound like Salvo’s. Instead, the dark, grave voice that had seemed to underpin the fire magi’s speech took control, although it was now loud and cavernous. It echoed the words from the pages of Jazai’s tome…consume, consume, consume. As Devol stared at the fiery recreation of the malefic, he felt for a brief moment that the dark desire might come to pass.

Chapter Thirty-One

Farah smashed the pommel of her blade into the face of one of the fiends and raised a shield hastily as two others attempted to strike her from behind. She turned and cut through them before she flipped her blade and drove it through the attacker behind her. “How much longer, Wulfsun?”

“I almost have it!” the Templar shouted. The rift had narrowed to such an extent that he could grasp it with his actual gauntlets. He looked at a fiend that tried to force itself through the shrinking portal and with a grimace, he lifted his leg and stamped his boot on it to knock it back. “Get out of here, you annoyin’ inkblot!”

“The barrier is shrinking again,” Farah announced when she noticed the edges continue to close in around