33. WE ARE RISING

  I had only minutes before my shield would start to fade.

  With my left hand, I drew matter from the pockets in my cloak. I pulled out a small gemstone, a hunk of granite, and even a couple jagged pieces of metal taken from destroyed Motorized weapons. I drained all of them and sent the matter into my Staff of Matter. Thankfully, there was no limit to the amount of matter the talisman could hold, however, there was a limit to how long it would keep the matter. The matter it held, the less time it could hold it all—I had to be careful of the balance.

  So, I knelt down and worked fast.

  I began to weave a multi-layered spell. In fact, as I wove, it became two spells, and then four. I wanted there to be no doubts. As I wove, I began to sweat profusely, and my dizziness grew as I began to feel slightly faint. The older wound in my side throbbed, and the new wound in the small of my back pulsed as well, in a kind of sickly rhythm.

  When the spells were ready, I looked up. The thugs had recovered from my feeble blows, and they stalked around me hungrily, watching me as I worked. They'd dragged the screaming, now one-handed man away. Another thug tried to fire an explosive round at the shield. It deflected off the shield and exploded off in another area of The Factory, catching fire in a corner.

  The giant just stared at me from where he stood near the back wall, watching me closely, the same fiendish grin on his face. The others circled more closely, like mad hyenas stalking prey. I smelled a hint of smoke from the fire.

  Slowly then, I stood up. For some mages, the act of triggering a spell is a rush of adrenaline akin to jump into a lake from a high cliff. The swell of power just before a spell is triggered is a physical and psychological charge of power.

  For me, the adrenaline rush always came, and the feeling was a good one, but the act of destruction was never something I enjoyed. However, in this place, knowing what had been happening here for decades, I tried to savor this moment. The acts we carried out now was justice.

  I whirled my staff around to trigger the multi-layered spell and crouched into a ball just as an explosion launched with a concussive force so powerful, I’d never cast it’s like before in my life.

  The explosion ripped out from me, as if it came from my own body, radiating from my own skin, and from my own rage and anger. The concussion exploded outward in all directions and rocked everything around me, destroying men, nearby stairwells, machines, even cracking the cemented floor on which I stood.

  As the explosion rocked The Factory, I felt like a stoic rock standing in the eye inside the furious swell of a hurricane.

  Then, just as the concussion left me, I rose up into the air. The second part of the spell pushed me up, allowing me to hover over the scene, still dizzy but able to see what was happening. I surveyed the scene of destruction.

  Men were down all around The Factory floor, with machines caved in and collapsed. All around me, in a wide circle, I saw a wreath of destruction.

  Then the final spell kicked in, and my staff became a brazier of light. I started launching fire from my Staff of Matter. My staff became what some mages called “a dragon’s head,” or a thrower of flame.

  I floated toward the middle of the Factory floor and sent flame toward any Vale soldiers or thugs still standing in my vicinity. I felt another rush of adrenaline as I sent bursts of fire at thugs and machines and even The Factory walls themselves.

  When every enemy around me was down, or burning, I dropped to the ground and almost collapsed. Regaining my senses, despite already being dizzy, I remembered the next step in our plan. I went to the first chained-up mage I could find and kneeled before him.

  “We come with the resistance," I said as I freed him from the chains that bound his wrists. "Can you walk?”

  He nodded.

  “I can walk,” he said through bleary, bloodshot eyes. His blinked a few times trying to focus on me, then he stared at me in disbelief. Years of slavery surely had devastating effects, and I could see them on his face. He went to stand, but thick chains also bound his legs—bolted shut with thick locks.

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  “Where are the keys?” I asked.

  The mage pointed to the man lying on the floor.

  I saw a key ring at his belt and ripped it off, finding the thick key to the lock and freeing the mage. His eyes went wide as the cuffs on his legs fell away, the heavy chain dropping to the floor. I went ahead and transformed the matter of the chain itself, sending it into my Staff of Matter.

  I stood up and saw our men locking down The Factory floor, a few scuffles still happening around the edges. For the most part, the fighting was already over. The remaining thugs and machinists who continued to resist were quickly tied up and thrown to the ground. We freed all the mages as fires continued burning and smoke gathered near the ceiling.

  The mage on the ground before me knelt down to the ground. His legs had looked weak and shaky when he tried to stand up.

  “You are…a mage…” he said slowly. It wasn’t a question.

  “I am,” I said carefully. “I follow the Way of the Mark. There are many of us now and we are rising.”

  I peeled back my shirt showing him the tattoo on my chest. His eyes slowly met mine, the hint of a smile on his lips. His arm and hands shook as he pulled down his own shirt, showing a tattoo on his chest as well.

  “I have prayed for this day….for so many years…,” he said, tears forming in his eyes. He continued to stare at me hard as if to prove to himself that this was really happening.

  “The day is here my friend,” I said, looking into his eyes. “We need to get you out of here before their reinforcements come.”

  He nodded and I helped him up, walking with him to the doors. The other freed mages weren't in any better shape, as each could barely walk, severely weakened and lacking strength.

  Outside it was still a quiet, calm morning, and still relatively dark as the entirety of our attack had only taken a matter of minutes.

  We shuttled well over thirty mages out to the cliff walls, most of whom were tired, weak, and dumbfounded, their limbs thin and atrophied. Slowly but surely, the mages scaled the cliffs with our men helping them along in the early morning darkness.

  Inside The Factory, Greer, Bend, Shade, Ehren, and I destroyed the machines one by one. Inside the dampening spell of quiet that I had cast over The Factory itself, we cast explosive spells over each machine, destroying them completely—turning each one into a scattering of broken parts. We destroyed a large weapons cache in one of the rooms, pocketing any additional rare matter we found, ensuring that none of the hybrid machines found here would ever work again.

  Finally, we hauled the remaining bound, and gagged motorized thugs, soldiers, and machinists outside The Factory itself and to the cliff walls. Even though it took more time, we shuttled each of them to the top of the cliffs, where we had wagons waiting, so we could move them into our own, newly-built prison on the outskirts of the desert.

  These few wouldn’t fight us any longer. The wagons and Dirk’s army moved away from the cliff top and started the trek down the mountain. I gave them a few minutes head start before we began the final phase of our attack.

  Then, just as the first rays of the sun gleamed over the horizon, the Spellcaster army stood at the top of the cliffs and looked down at The Factory, now a ruin on the inside. For a moment, as we stood there looking, the entire valley was peaceful and quiet, almost as if nothing at all had happened.

  Then every mage stood with me along bluffs and began to weave.

  Greer led us by launching the first fireball at The Factory itself—we had laid wood, branches, and other tinder around the outside of The Factory walls and those quickly burst into flames.

  After launching a fireball of my own, I saw one of the mages who had likely been chained to a machine for years, in that very building, come over and join us. He had a look in his eyes that I’d seen before. Tired and weak though he was, he stood alongside us, found some matter from somewhere, and began to weave a spell of his own. As tears streamed down his face, he sent a streaming gout of fire into the roof of The Factory, and the look in his eyes was one of anger and vengeance.

  We wove spell after spell sending fire into The Factory until the building became an inferno, flames licking up the chimney on top of the factory. By this time, other soldiers of Vale had woken up and shouts of alarm rang out throughout the valley.

  I gave a signal and our army faded back into the wilderness. Greer cast the last of the fire spells and I watched for just a moment longer as The Factory continued to burn. One of the walls fell inward to the ground, taking a large section of the roof with it.

  The building was a complete loss.

  I looked over at Bend, who stood there watching, firelight reflecting in his eyes. He looked back at me and nodded, a grim but satisfied smile on his lips. This was a day we'd both dreamed of in one form or another. And I hoped this attack would show Uof that he could not quell our rebellion, but something inside me knew that it would actually have the opposite effect.

  Just as I turned to follow our men, I heard a guttural roar from the head of the valley. I turned back for a moment.

  In the firelight, I saw the large mechanical form of Uof bounding toward The Factory, the pistons in his legs cranking. I could hear them from all the way up on the cliff tops.

  Surrounded by his soldiers, Uof barked out orders, anger coursing through his words.