“Trolls,” Myla confirmed, face scrunched up in anger and fear. “Fucking Cave Trolls.”

  Eres beckoned backwards, and they retreated to the cave full of earth mounds. They kept their steps quick but soft, and before long, they were crouched behind one of the piles of dirt to discuss their next steps. Their voices were hushed and strained.

  “Well, love, you were right about there being bigger things down here than just Goblins,” Freya said, hands twisting on her staff. “A single Troll would be fine, I think, but three of them? We might struggle to put any of them down, let alone deal with the Goblins too.”

  Eres nodded slowly, brain spinning into overdrive. “Normally I would suggest just blowing the fuckers up with an explosive fire spell, and with how concentrated the Mana is down here I think it would be easy enough, but that isn’t an option thanks to the cave. Still, fire is going to be needed to stop their regeneration. Freya, you got anything on that front?”

  “Hm, for Myla maybe,” Freya explained. “Her weapon I can enchant. Your mana constructs, though… Well, we haven’t found a way to make it work yet, and now doesn’t seem like the time to experiment.”

  Eres grimaced at that and looked up at Myla. She was looking at him with eyes full of determination, and she spoke before he could. “That’s fine. If you can make sure I can hurt them, then I can be upfront on my own.

  “I know you don’t like it, Eres, but we need fire here, so you need to stay back and sling spells like a Mage would. Shield me where you can, but we need to even this playing field, so you need to burn one of them down, fast.”

  She let out a long breath, then took the edge of her Great-spear and ran it along the back of her forearm, slicing through the skin so a thin dribble of blood began to drip down her skin. “We can’t afford to hold anything back here if we want to get out alive. Stop me if I am going to kill myself, but otherwise let me keep fighting until the battle is over. Are we clear?”

  Eres blinked down at the usually shy blonde girl owlishly, before a slightly crazed grin split his face. He turned to Freya as Myla started to move back towards the tunnel and whispered in her ear, “Is it just me, or was her taking charge like that really damn hot?”

  Freya let out a choked laugh, face still pale. Eres gave her a quick one-armed hug and briefly kissed her, not letting it deepen beyond a chaste press of lips, before gripping her hand and pulling her behind him to follow Myla. Seconds later, he heard her begin to pray under her breath. He knew she could shorten her chants at the cost of the Miracles’ being less efficient, and he was getting used to the final few words, so he knew what was coming before it manifested, but he didn’t recognise this one at all. He barely remembered all the spells he had learned himself over the years, let alone remembering Freya’s entire list, but he made a mental note to try harder on that front. Those few seconds could be crucial.

  As they posted up at the entrance to the cavern, Myla pointed at the left-most Troll. It was hefting around a large club, and seemed to be chewing on something, but it was the furthest away from the others. “What do you think, blitz attack the one on its own or go for the group and hope we bring the numbers down by the time it makes its way over to us?”

  “I think we want to keep the tunnel to our backs so we can retreat if needed,” Eres said quietly, already cycling his Mana through his body and Core. “I can start working on the lone troll, and then cycle to support you once he is dead. This isn’t exactly my specialty, so I don’t know how many spells I will need to put him down, but until he’s dead, I won't be able to focus on defending you.”

  Myla nodded and switched across to the other side of the tunnel in readiness. “On your mark then.”

  Eres took a deep breath as he felt the Mana continue to build. While training with Brom, he had used various projectile spells, and he found that those using fire and lightning came easiest to him. They weren’t as efficient as spells that revolved around defense and protection, thanks to his blessing, but he had enough Mana in his Core and the surrounding atmosphere that he wasn’t worried about that. He was just worried about making a spell large enough that it could kill a Troll, and small enough that it wouldn’t cause a cave-in.

  He drew his right arm back, the Mana gauntlets long since gone, and cocked it as if he was going to throw a javelin. He concentrated on the feeling of the Mana in his body, flowing back and forth like a wave, and whipped it into a frenzy. By the time it reached his hand, it was screaming for release, and a soft red glow began to emanate as flames began to form in his hand. He kept pouring more and more Mana in, strengthening the spell further and further as a long spear of flame and light formed in his hand.

  Then everything went wrong behind him.

  He couldn’t turn without risk of the spell fizzling out or misfiring, but he heard a high-pitched shriek followed by Myla swearing. He had nearly put triple the amount of Mana he would normally put into this spell when he heard the clash of metal behind him. The sounds behind him got louder and more frenzied, and he saw the Troll that he was aiming at begin to slowly turn its head in their direction.

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  Stepping out from the tunnel to get a good angle, Eres launched his arm forward as he finished overcharging the spell, yelling the incantation as he moved.

  “Flame Lance!” he cried, watching the solid pillar of fire scream through the air and plunge directly into the Troll’s throat as it turned. The smoking hole it left in the creature's airway let him see the cave wall behind it, but it took a few seconds for the Troll’s features to slacken and for it to fall to the ground with a resounding crash. Adrenaline pumped through Eres as he spun, Mana gathering as he turned to see what was happening behind him.

  At first glance, it looked like chaos. Eres could see multiple corpses lying around, Goblin bodies that seemed to have had their wounds cauterised as they occurred, though considering the number that were bisected or headless, he doubted they felt much of the pain. Myla was a whirlwind of steel and fire, the polearm leaving red streaks through the air as she slashed, thrust and twirled it through the Goblins that were trying to get past her to Freya. She moved faster than Eres had ever seen, and he knew her Spirit Art must be in full effect. She was splattered in blood, but he could see more than one patch of red blood on her arms, so some of the little bastards' strikes must have been landing in the melee.

  As he began to surge towards her, Mana cycling once more, his gaze turned to Freya. He found it funny the things he would notice in these moments of blood and fear. Like the fact that her face was serene and peaceful, even as she landed a thunderous strike with her staff into the jaw of one of the pair of Goblins that had made their way past Myla’s fury to get to her. The strike itself glowed white hot, and a thunderclap sounded as Eres watched the monster's little green head burst under the force.

  She was praying under her breath as she whirled the staff in motions that blocked and parried simultaneously, but the calm never left her as she made eye contact with Eres and watched Myla’s back as best she could.

  With both of them stemming the tide of Goblin’s Eres brought his gaze above their heads. The Trolls might have been slow on the uptake, but now they were thundering their way across the room, heavy footfalls making the earth shudder as the eight-foot giants rushed to get to the fight. One even brought its tree-branch of a club in a sweep in front of it to clear some of the Goblins out of the way, sending them flying through the air screaming.

  Knowing he didn’t have as much time, Eres poured Mana into his hands and launched another spear of flame above Myla’s head and towards the closest Troll, another spear forming as soon as the first left his hand. It took three of the flaming spears to break through the Troll’s tough hide, and the fourth dug in deep enough that it knocked the creature off its feet, slamming on its back against the ridge of the pool of water in the centre of the cavern.

  Eres felt his spirit soar. Two of the Trolls were down, the Goblins were under control. Now they just needed to deal with the last major threat.

  As he turned at the final charging behemoth, he felt his mouth go dry as he watched its club sail through the air and slam into Myla’s side, sending her spinning across the room and slamming into the rockface nearly ten feet away. The sickening crack of the impact was audible even over the Troll’s roar and the Goblin’s shrieking voices.

  Eres felt the world freeze around him as everything went grey. His brain screamed for him to act, his Mana roiling through his body as it raged to be let out. His brain replayed the last few seconds again and again. Her body folding around the club, the crunch of bone as she impacted the wall, the roar of rage that tore itself from his throat at the sight. Was the roar his? He didn’t know. He kept thinking of the sound as she hit the wall, and remembering that vision or dream or whatever it was that he had had all those years ago. The Goblin plunging its blade into Myla’s throat, and her still having the strength to hold it down. He waited to see if this was the same, if he would snap back to a few seconds before, to get a second chance.

  But he knew he wouldn’t.

  He didn’t know how he was so sure, but he was. He felt rage grow in his gut, felt a primal anger that he hadn’t felt for years. He didn’t get the ice in his gut that stopped his Mana from responding anymore, he had trained that response away years ago. Now the rage fed into the Mana, amplified it until he could hear the blood thundering in his ears and feel the magic screaming through his blood.

  “NOOOOO!” He screamed, the colour bleeding back into the world as he let the Mana out into the world, letting the rage choose its form. He felt it tear out of him in arcs and bolts, a flood of lightning blasting from his hands. The jagged bolts of power slammed first into the remaining Troll, detonating its chest cavity with a clap of thunder. The electricity arced from there, jumping from body to body as if it were alive, seeking out targets through its creator’s intent.

  The remaining enemies were destroyed in moments. The injured troll by the pool was blasted to pieces, and what remained of the Goblins after Myla’s fury were turned to ash in the torrent of magic, but rather than dispersing against the walls of the cave, the energy tried to return. Lightning struck his outstretched hands and poured through his body, filling his Core with Mana and then burning the excess inside of him.

  Eres thought he was screaming, but he couldn’t be sure over the crackle of electricity and the overpowering smell of ozone. He felt the energy stop after a while, grounding itself into the earth beneath his feet, but he barely noticed, turning his head as he tried to stagger towards the blonde berserker that had taken the strike because he hadn’t been shielding her, hadn’t been defending her.

  He hadn’t expected her to already be on her feet, blood bubbling at the corners of her smiling mouth. He hadn’t expected her eyes to fill with worry as she limped towards him, grabbing his hands in horror. He hadn’t expected to hear Freya’s voice in the seemingly far distance, telling them everything would be alright.

  Most of all, though, he hadn’t expected to look down to see scorched flesh and lightning burns covering every inch of his arms, the flesh inflamed and raw, but once he did see his wounds, he was surprised when the edges of the world went black and he slipped into unconsciousness.