The surrounding creatures, about a dozen visible, took a step back, then another. One more shout,
Khadgar reckoned, and they would flee back into the swamp, and give him enough time to flee himself.
He had already decided he would flee south, toward the army encampment.
Instead there was a high, cackling laugh that froze Khadgar’s blood. The ranks of the green warriors
parted and another figure shambled forward. It was thinner and more hunched than the others, and wore
a robe the color of curdled blood. The color of the sky of Khadgar’s vision. Its features were as green
and misshapened as the others, but this one has a gleam of feral intelligence in its eyes.
It held out its hand, palm upward, and took a dagger and pierced its palm with the tip. Reddish blood
pooled in the clawed palm.
The robed beast spoke a word that Khadgar had never heard, a word that hurt the ears, and the blood
burst into flame.
“Human wants to play?” said the robed monster, roughly matching the human language. “Wants to play
at spells? Nothgrin can play!”
“Leave now,” tried Khadgar. “Leave now or die!”
But the young mage’s voice wavered now, and the robed mockery merely laughed. Khadgar scanned
the area around him, looking for the best place to run, wondering if he could grab one of the guard’s
swords laying on ground. He wondered if this Nothgrin was bluffing as much as Khadgar had been.
Nothgrin took a step toward Khadgar, and two of the brutes to the spellcaster’s right suddenly
screamed and burst into flame. It happened with a suddenness that shocked everyone, including
Khadgar. Nothgrin wheeled toward the immolated creatures, to see two more join them, bursting into
flame like dry sticks. They screamed as well, their knees buckling, and they toppled to the ground.
In the place where the creatures had been now stood Medivh. He seemed to glow of his own volition,
diminishing the main fire, the burning wagons, and the burning corpses on the ground, sucking their light
into himself. He seemed radiant and relaxed. He smiled at the collected creatures, and it was a savage,
brutal smile.
“My apprentice told you to leave,” said Medivh, “You should have followed his orders.”
One of the beasts let out a bellow, and the rogue magus silenced it with a wave of his hand. Something
hard and invisible struck the beast square in the face, and there was a shattering crack as its head came
loose of its body and rolled backward, striking the ground only moments before the creature’s body struck the sand.
The rest of the creatures staggered backward a step, then fled entirely into the night. Only the leader, the
robed Nothgrin, held its ground, and its overwide jaw flapped open in surprise.
“Nothgrin knows you, human,” he hissed. “You are the one….”
Anything else the creature said disappeared in a scream as Medivh waved a hand and the creature was
pulled off its feet by a burst of air and fire. It was swept upward, screaming, until at last its lungs
collapsed from the stress and remains of its burned body drifted down like black snowflakes.
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