Book 3, Chapter 29

Adult brakvaw were just too big to pummel with conjurations. They’d shrug off lightning bolts and fire blasts easily, and as I’d already proven, they had enough mass and speed to break through force magic without so much as blinking. For all their size, their immense mana cores, and their strange method of cycling their own mana so that they never ran out, they shared the same weakness all non-mages had.

They lacked the mental discipline to resist attacks on their minds. That was why my mind shred spell had been so effective against the first one. I could use the same spell on this brakvaw and I expected I’d get similar results, but that would leave me with very little mana to take care of that elder who’d be coming back around in a few seconds.

I only had a second to act, but I’d made my decisions before the brakvaw had even reached us. I threw out a half-dozen mind spikes into the monstrous bird and hoped I’d judged its competency at resisting divination-based attacks correctly. On the off chance that I was wrong, I was also flying out of its way, though that was more to pull the action away from Senica than because I thought I could actually dodge the brakvaw if the mind spikes failed.

Luckily for me, I’d read the bird right. The spells slammed into its mind, staccato spikes of pain that caused it to lose control of the mana cycling under its wings. Without that magic helping it, there was no way it could keep its huge bulk in the air. The brakvaw dipped into a sharp dive as it shook its immense head.

One dead, one momentarily incapacitated, and one circling around, already casting another spell. I could read the magic it was forming easily, and it was a problem. I wasn’t sure if the elder was lashing out or if he’d chosen his target to force me to react, but either way, my sister was about to become a cloud of blood and tattered flesh raining down on the water below unless I did something to intervene.

As a general rule, I didn’t try to use spells like mind spike on casters. Divination and enchantments rarely worked out against mages, who’d spent so much time learning to control mana. Conjurations worked much better, unless the target was someone like me, who’d spent the time and resources on various wards to protect against them.

I did have one series of spells in my repertoire that could cut through the raw physical power that came with weighing multiple tons and being larger than a house. Phantasmal weaponry didn’t care about things like armor, though sheer size could be an issue, depending on the spell used. That was why I’d planned on using phantasmal lance against the brakvaw elder.

Normally, this line of spells was used against armored opponents, but I’d put it to good effect against giants and even a few dragons in the past. I expected it to work well against this opponent too. The only problem was getting close enough to use it.

The elder was too far away for me to counterspell its magic, too far away for me to attack its physically. I needed to distract it for a few seconds, so I threw out an illusion of me while going invisible myself. The illusion appeared right in front of the elder and ignited into a burst of real fire. That part of my trick was an actual ranged fire blast spell.

It didn’t harm the brakvaw, not in any meaningful way, but it did force it to close its eyes and turn its face from the heat, which in turn disrupted the force spell it’d been about to throw at Senica. She was diving out of the way as fast as her magic could carry her, but it would have been easy for the brakvaw to track her flight path and blast her anyway. A force bolt that big would have torn her body limb from limb.

My distraction was just that, however: a distraction. I’d delayed the elder’s spell long enough to close the distance, but now I needed to do something to actually put the brakvaw down. I flew in, one hand leading, and as I completed the spell, a lance of what looked like glass appeared in front of me. It was close to forty feet long, more than big enough to skewer the brakvaw. The question was whether or not I could aim the lance somewhere that would matter.

A heart shot would be ideal, but I wasn’t that familiar with bird anatomy. If I knew where to put the lance, I’d have gone that route. Failing that, it was rare to go wrong with attacking the brain, and that was just about always located in the head, at least on monsters that had one.

Unlike a phantasmal sword, the lance version of the spell didn’t have a sharp edge. All of the magic was used to form the long body of the weapon, and the penetrating power was all in the tip. I wouldn’t be able to swing it around and attempt to behead the brakvaw elder, which left me with only the option of skewering his skull instead.

I gave myself half a second to line the spell up after the phantasmal lance formed. A small twitch of my hand sent the tip swinging wildly, but I was experienced with this kind of combat. I closed the gap, the lance lined up right with the brakvaw elder’s beak, and it drove through its closed mouth and into its throat.

I swerved to the side at the last possible instant while the elder screeched in pain and coughed up blood. It wasn’t quite the brain-piercer I’d been going for, but that would probably prove to be fatal in and of itself unless the old bird knew some healing magic. Even if it did, that wasn’t the kind of spell that was easy to cast while fending off attacks.

Whatever it might have been able to do to save itself was irrelevant. It took me barely four seconds to reorient myself for another attack and fly in. This time, the challenge was more keeping up with the erratic thrashing the brakvaw elder was doing, but I came down from directly above it. Without having to account for its forward momentum, I struck it clean, the lance piercing the top of its skull and coming out through its throat.

The screaming stopped. A second enemy fell to crash into the water below.

The third brakvaw was still reeling from my mind spikes, but it had seen the death of its two companions clearly and by this point it had to know it was overmatched. Supporting my theory was the fact that it turned and flew as fast as it could in the opposite direction from me. I briefly considered letting it go, mostly because even with the pain from the mind spikes making it look like it was flying drunk, it was still an incredibly fast bird.

But I didn’t need the hassle of more brakvaw coming after me over some stupid notion of revenge, as if it were my fault that I’d successfully defended myself. There was still the possibility that it could happen anyway, of course, but if these three had been acting independently and no one knew what they were up to or where they were, then killing the third brakvaw right now would end the threat.

‘You need to take over your own flight spell. Head for the northern side of the channel and wait for me. I’ll be back in a minute,’ I sent to Senica.

Then I took off after the brakvaw, my magic’s top speed just barely faster than the stumbling flight of my victim. It only took me a few minutes to catch up.

  *

We made our own camp that night, a little one-room shelter of stone I built out of a flat spot on the side of a mountain. The violent start to our day had left Senica quiet and introspective. Any questions I’d asked had been met with monosyllabic answers, so I’d done my best to give her space while she processed the attack.

Once we had walls surrounding us and food in our bellies, she finally broke her silence. “Those giant birds were the ones you’ve been working with. Why did they attack us?”

“We’ll probably never know for sure,” I told her. “I knew the one in charge didn’t like me, but there didn’t ever really seem to be a reason for that hostility besides me being an outsider. Maybe it felt it was wrong to teach a human their magic. Maybe it didn’t like that I set foot in one of their holy places. Maybe it just thought I smelled bad.”

“Couldn’t we have reasoned with them, though? I mean, they weren’t monsters, right?”

“Technically? Yes, they were. Those bodies of theirs couldn’t fly without magic. I’m not even sure they could have supported their own size unaided. Without mana, they’d die, which makes them monsters. But do you mean that they were intelligent? They have their own culture and families and communities? Yes, they have all of those things.”

“Then why didn’t we try to talk to them? Why did you just kill them?”

“A few reasons,” I explained. “First, you were with me. Coming at them with anything less than the intent to kill them would put you in more danger. I’m not saying it was your fault. Please don’t ever think that. They started that fight by attacking us.

“Second. I’ve been expecting this kind of thing for a few months now. There were some brakvaw that made it clear they weren’t happy with me being there for whatever reason, and the one that could cast spells was high up in their social hierarchy. I honestly expected it to try something when I was helping Grandfather, but I guess it was smart enough not to do it in front of its boss.

“Third. Yes, I could probably have subdued them instead of killing them, but why should I? What would I have done then? Left them to recover so they could chase us down and try again? I guess I could have wasted a few days flying them all the way back to Eyrie Peak and handed them over, but as far as I know, they don’t have any sort of jail, so that leads back to them either dying or being freed to try again.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Senica said, but I could see she still wasn’t happy with my answers.

Senica knew that I’d killed people before, but she’d never been there to witness it. Maybe it had been easier for her to rationalize it or just push it out of her mind when it wasn’t happening right in front of her. She was probably hoping that I’d tell her the brakvaw were monsters like the ones she’d put down outside of Ghalin, but it just wasn’t true.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just… It’s an adjustment. I’m still wrapping my head around it. That one bird was trying to kill me, you know? It didn’t even know who I was. I was just in the way. Except, not really.”

“That was an elder from their people, the one who didn’t like me. And you’re right, it was trying to kill you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just with me and it thought attacking you would force me into a bad position it could take advantage of.”

Maybe I’d misjudged what had upset Senica. Maybe it wasn’t the sudden violence. Maybe it was brushing up against death and knowing there’d been nothing she could do to prevent it. If I hadn’t intervened quickly enough, that brakvaw would have crushed her.

“It got what it deserved then,” she said.

“Yeah. Not a great way to start our journey, but it probably won’t be the last time something like this happens. That’s part of these things. It’s why we’re doing it, so that you can get some real-world experience. Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you die.”

“I know,” she soft softly. “You’d protect me. But it’d be nice to be able to protect myself. I thought I could do that, but now I’m not so sure anymore.”

“There’s a simple solution,” I told her. “Keep doing what you’re doing. Practice, get better, learn new spells, strengthen your core.”

Senica groaned, but I heard a hint of a laugh in there. It might take a little bit, but she was going to be alright.