Page 177 of Of Empires and Dust
The Exarch surged forwards, crashing into the rebels with no heed for self-preservation. Magnus dodged the swing of the first attacker’s axe, then carved through the man’s forearm before hacking off his jaw and leaving him to slump to the ground. The next rebel fared no better, Magnus’s níthral cleaving his leg at the knee before plunging upwards through his throat and out the back of his skull. Magnus was a man possessed. Anything that came near him fell in a heartbeat, his red blade carving open chests and severing limbs.
Rist, Neera, and the soldiers turned to face a group charging them from the rear, steel ringing as they collided.
A man wielding a massive black axe careened towards Rist, the weapon carving through the air in a devastating swing. Rist reached for his sword – a sword that wasn’t there. It was back in the barracks.
Without thought, Rist snared the axe and held it in place with a thread of Air. The man stood there, frozen, tugging at his axe to no avail. The rage in his eyes faded to fear, and suddenly Rist felt a pang of sympathy for the helplessness before him. Against the power of the Spark, this man was nothing.
A tingle ran down his spine, and Rist shifted to dodge a shard of rock that had been launched at his head by an Alamant rushing towards him. He pivoted and hurled a sphere of air into the Alamant’s chest, sending her hurtling into the flames at her back. A roar sounded to his right, and he pulled on threads of Earth, dragging a section of stone from the ground and launching it upwards.
When the Alamant had attacked, Rist had released the threads of Air holding the axe-wielder in place. The man now hung suspended from a stone spike that impaled him through the chest. The rebel coughed, blood spluttering from his open mouth. He took one last rasping breath, then the life left his body, limbs slumping, head lolling forward.
Rist pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the gemstone pendant hanging beneath his tunic. A voice in the back of his mind told him to harness the life Essence that flowed from the man’s body, but he couldn’t. Something about this particular death felt so pointless. And yet, to let the Essence drift away, to let it fade to nothing… How was that any better?
The shifting of dirt beneath boots sounded behind him and he twisted to avoid a spear thrust. The steel tip sliced through the belly of his tunic but missed his flesh. Rist whipped a thread of Air into his attacker’s side and heard bones crunch as the woman was lifted from her feet and bounced across the stones, her spear skittering away. She lay there, twitching and coughing up blood.
A pulse of the Spark rippled to his left, and before he could react, threads of Air wrapped around him, coiling and twisting. The first thought that flared in his mind was panic, but that quickly died when he realised how weak the threads were.
He slid thin threads of Spirit down through the threads of Air that held him, watching them melt away. When he turned, hefound himself looking into the eyes of a man who’d seen at least ten summers more than he.
The man stared at Rist blankly, eyes wide, mouth ajar. He was twice Rist’s size, thick-muscled with a black beard dense as a bush. He held a short axe in his left hand, but instead of charging, he sent threads of Spirit, Fire, and Water into Rist. The threads pushed through Rist’s tunic, through his skin, and into his bones. He could feel them flooding him, feel his soul quiver at their touch.
The man was trying to burn him out.
Rist’s natural instinct was to push back, and so he did. There was no struggle, no moment of panic where either man wondered who was stronger. Nothing like that. Rist overwhelmed the Alamant completely and utterly.
A piercing white light burst from the man’s eyes as he collapsed to his knees, screaming and writhing. Rist tried to pull back, tried to stop, but it was far too late. The skin around the Alamant’s eyes bubbled and smoked, burning to black as the white light seared forth.
The shrieks that clawed their way from his throat sent a chill down Rist’s spine. And then they ceased, and the Alamant fell onto his side, arms splayed, tongue hanging from his open mouth, eyes burned from his sockets. Rist felt the pendant calling him once more, heard that little voice telling him to draw the life Essence, to save it. But again, he let it drift away.
To his right, Neera pulled her sword from a woman’s belly, flames pouring from her hand and washing over another man who charged towards her. A rebel hurled himself forwards and caught Neera in the side with the swing of a hammer. Neera stumbled sideways, and the man struck her again, this time in the chest. She tripped over a body and hit the ground hard. Rist could feel threads of Fire whirling around her, but he wasalready there, charging, his feet moving before he even had the time to think.
A woman came hurtling at him from the right with a battered sword. Without breaking stride, he caught the blade mid-swing with a thread of Air, wrenched it from her hand, spun it, and rammed it back down through her neck and out her back.
Rist wrapped threads of Air around the throat of the man with the hammer, hauling him across the ground. The man’s feet hovered over the stone and burning bodies, his hands clasping at his throat.
Rist pulled the rebel through the air until his fingers were wrapped firmly around the man’s throat. Dark eyes stared back at him as fists slammed down on his arm. But Rist tapped into the gemstone around his neck, the feeling of ice shooting through his veins, the world growing quiet and dim before bursting to life. He let the Essence flow through him, and the man’s slamming fists became nothing more than a nuisance.
Neera leapt past Rist and took a rebel’s head from their shoulders as they made to run him through with a spear.
“We give our lives to keep you safe.” Rist tilted his head to the side, trying to glean some sort of answers from the man’s eyes. He closed his hand tighter, the cords of the man’s neck tense beneath his fingers, only the slightest of gasps dragging air past Rist’s grip. “She stood on that wall, watching over this city while it slept, and you tried to steal the life from her veins.”
“You…” the man choked out through ragged breaths. “You…”
Rist loosened his grip.
“You’re fucking scum.” He glared at Rist, eyes wide with bitter rage. “You and your bitch will burn. Your whole fucking empire will burn.”
The Essence in Rist’s blood flared, and he squeezed, feeling asnap.The man’s body went limp, and Rist drew the fadingEssence into the gemstone around his neck, a red glow pulsing beneath his tunic.
As soon as Rist realised what he had done, he released his grip and let the lifeless corpse crumple to the ground, nestled between a burning body and a lump of broken stone. He stared down at the body, feeling the Essence surge through him, feeling as though he could tear a hole through a stone wall with his bare hands.
Soldiers rushed in around him, shouting, swords drawn, swarming over the remaining rebels who had charged from the buildings. Several of the Battlemages who had been sent to scour the streets followed only moments after, the air crackling with the power of the Spark.
Neera grabbed Rist and turned him to face her.
He let go of the Essence, feeling its absence as it faded from his veins, and cupped her cheeks, his hands trembling. “Are you all right?”
She grunted and looked down at where the hammer swings had dented her armour. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Are you… all right? I saw?—”
