The Path of Giants, B.T. Narro [the speed reading book .TXT] 📗

most were trying to get behind Leon as he burned one alive and blew back three others with wind.

They’re not just swordsmen, I corrected myself. Most of them are dark mages as well.

“You have to get out of here,” I told Hadley. She didn’t even have a weapon with her. “What are you doing?”

“You’re exhausted! You’re going to get yourself killed if I don’t do something!” She wiped a cloth down the end of my sword, taking off a bit of blood at the tip. Then she wiped the cloth on a blue moonstone. Quickly, she brushed her hand over it, then closed her eyes and murmured something.

“All right, go,” she said as she darted off away from the fight.

I felt my strength returning with unnatural speed. It was as if I’d had a whole minute to recover, and her spell still wasn’t over. I jogged, then sprinted at my enemies, feeling fresher than when the fight had started. It was as if there was no end to my mana.

I tensed my mana as I watched my enemies lift their hands in my direction. Their spells were barely stronger than a sneeze against my resistance. I tossed one man high and far as if he were a small pebble. Then I deflected a sword strike from another and kept up my momentum as I stuck my weapon into the face of a third attacker. The one who I’d deflected thought he could stab me from behind, but he wasn’t ready for me to turn around and chop his head off.

The sword in his now-dead hands still had enough momentum to stick into the soft flesh of my side, but it was a quick heal as his weapon and headless body fell to the ground. That’s when I noticed the bearded sorcerer I had stabbed, whose blood Hadley had used. He had fallen to his knees as he struggled for breath, looking as if he didn’t have the strength to even stand.

It was his mana that Hadley’s curse had transferred to me.

I ran toward Leon and took out two men with quick swipes of my blade before the rest even knew I was there. Some turned to face me while the others continued to shield themselves with dteria from Leon’s fire.

“Watch out!” I yelled to Leon.

He didn’t see a swordsman coming up behind him, but the swordsman was struck by a blast of fire before he could finish his attack. He and his weapon were blown away from Leon, who ignored the heat behind him as he focused on two others in front of him. I traced the direction of the fireball to little Remi, the front of her shirt covered in soot.

I feared for her safety as I watched her picked up with dteria from one of the many sorcerers around us—I couldn’t even be sure who—but then she sent a stream of fire into a sorcerer’s face, and soon she was on her feet again, darting toward Leon.

I was too busy to watch her any longer as I tossed away one man and faced the other with confidence. It didn’t take long to get through his defenses.

But then something struck me from the side. I was pushed over and pinned against the ground by dteria, no doubt.

“Shoot him!” yelled the mage as he held me.

I eyed an archer running up close—too close to miss me.

I didn’t have time to do anything but flinch, tucking my head down and rolling my shoulder up. The arrow went deep into my shoulder. I lost concentration as I screamed.

“Again!” said the mage, still pinning me to the ground.

“I’ve got him!” spoke a deep voice from my other side. I looked over to see a sword coming down through the air and threatening to chop my face in half.

My reflexes took over as I casted dvinia out through my head, tossing the man back and sending his weapon flipping high into the treetops. But that didn’t stop the archer on the other side.

I casted at him wildly in a panic. My dvinia made him stumble back a few steps, knocking his arrow off his bow, but he snatched it up from the ground quickly.

I had to free myself, or I would soon be dead. I tried to blast the dark mage back with dvinia, but he wasn’t very close to me. It didn’t interrupt his spell, just made him stumble back. Damn, he was strong to pin me from twenty feet away.

I physically and mentally grabbed the dteria pinning me down and shoved it off me enough to get to my feet, the dark mage groaning in effort during our wrestling match.

The archer had his arrow ready again. I suddenly let go of the dark mage’s dteria, letting him win the wrestling match as his energy threw me a few yards away at the same time that the archer released his string. He missed.

I found the same small pair of hands helping me up again and pulling me behind the cover of a tree. Hadley had gotten a lot closer.

“Take this,” she said as she plopped a moonstone into my hand. “Can you get it close to the archers at the center?”

First, I had to check on the archer and dark mage team who had almost killed me. The archer fired at my head as I looked around the tree, but his arrow struck the bark. The dark mage stood beside him, both waiting for us to come out with quick looks over their shoulders to check on the rest of the battle. Neither of them moved.

I looked over toward the center of the encampment. Endell stood with the team of archers who had remained at the center this whole time, and that’s when I noticed just how many arrows were with them. They were set up in a square formation with barrels of arrows sitting beside them. A set of dark mages stood at each corner. Our own archers were firing at them,