Page 30 of The Dryad Storm

“Wecan’t!” the commanding Smaragdalfar woman with the Varg-rune-marked face and half-shaved head growls back at her, the woman’s runic sword flashing a threatening emerald light. “We’re recharging these portals and recalibrating their trajectory to the Northern Forest!”

Valasca curses, jabbing her thumb toward the tunnel behind her. “Fallon Baneis on our tail! And she’s sent a swarm of corrupted storm spiders ahead of her! They’ll throw cyclones that will smashright throughany barriers you can conjure, as well as your portals!”

“We can take out storm spiders,” Mavrik snarls.

Valasca’s gaze pierces into him. “Not ones corrupted with Shadow and covered in deflection runes, you can’t!”

Now it’s Mavrik’s turn to curse before his gaze turns unfocused, as if he’s rooting through his mind for some magical option. Gwynn battles back a spike of terror. Everything she’s read about storm spiders and deflection runes in the armory’s grimoires flashes through her mind, along with images of detailed ink renderings of the horrifying beasts.

“How long till they get here?” Mavrik demands as the Smaragdalfar woman orders her army to form a defensive line in front of the portals.

“Not long,” Valasca answers. She holds up her blade. “I threw up a few barriers before I exhausted most of my weapon’s charge. But my shields aren’t strong enough to hold off those spiders and Fallon for long.”

Gwynn’s light mage mind swiftly riffles through all the runes in a huge Alfsigr military grimoire she scanned over a year ago and zeroes in on an obscure silver rune, one of the few that can defend against storm spiders.

“There’s an Alfsigr arachnid-defense rune,” she blurts out, just as Mavrik’s eyes glint with what looks like an idea.

“And an Alfsigr storm-shield rune,” he adds, eyes meeting hers in a flash of such intense urgency, a frisson of tingling energy shoots through her lines. Both of them eagerly look to Wynter.

Because Gwynn and Mavrik might not be able to create Alfsigr runes, but the Alfsigr Icaralrunic sorceressbefore them can.

Unspoken agreement lighting her gaze, Wynter holds out the Verdyllion to them. “Concentrate on the defensive runes and touch my hand,” she prods. “I’ll empathically read your combined knowledge and create the runes with the Verdyllion.”

Wasting no time, they grab Wynter’s hand, Mavrik’s fingers wrapping around Gwynn’s hand, as well. An explosion of invisible sparks sizzles out from Mavrik’s touch as the tips of Gwynn’s and Mavrik’s fingers slide forward over Wynter’s hand and they both make contact with the Verdyllion.

The Great Tree image bursts through Gwynn’s vision, raying out prismatic light of every hue as Gwynn’s lines pull hard toward Mavrik’s and abruptlyopen.

Gwynn gasps as she’s filled with the sudden, line-expanding sense of Mavrik’s every Level Five line—fire, air, wind and earth—a shudder passing through themboth as their eyes lock in a burst of snapping energy and Gwynn’s light magery burgeons to life. It’s like a floodgate being blasted wide-open, Gwynn’s power coursing, flashing and sparking, toward Mavrik’s lines, their magic melding into what feels like one Balanced system of interconnected lines channeling all five elemental powers.

Wynter lifts the Verdyllion, and they follow her motion as Wynter moves its tip in a sweeping arc to form two huge, bright silver Alfsigr runes in the air between them and the tunnel Valasca and her Urisk companion ran through. One rune is the arachnid-defense rune Gwynn is struggling to hold in the forefront of her mind, and the other is Mavrik’s storm-shield rune.

A chorus of loud clacks sounds through the tunnel, followed by a tinny, echoing insectile shriek that sends a powerful chill through Gwynnifer’s veins. She, Mavrik, and Wynter keep tight hold of the Verdyllion.

A giant spider scuttles into view, big as a horse, and terror crackles down Gwynn’s spine as more spiders swarm in behind the creature, chittering and clacking and gnashing chitinous jaws. For several seconds, Gwynn can’t breathe, the spiders’ nightmarish heads distorted with a multitude of glowing gray eyes, and their rune-marked thoraxes fitted with two raised holes just behind their heads, seemingly endless numbers of them scuttling into the cavern...

It’s not enough, Gwynn’s thoughts and heart pound out.Our two runes are not enough for an attack this large.

Forcing herself to focus, Gwynn sends her thoughts flying desperately through grimoires and swiftly locates a possible spell.

“What is this rune you’ve found?” Wynter asks, gaze stark as she empathically senses Gwynn’s thoughts.

“An Issani multiplication spell!” Gwynn cries. “But you can’t cast it, and neither can Mavrik—it’s not an Alfsigr or Mage spell!”

“Butyoucan,” Wynter fiercely returns.

Gwynn’s eyes widen, what Wynter is insinuating explosively clear—Light Mages are able to cast runic spells fromeverymagical system, not just their own. And Gwynn’s light magery is nowunblocked.

Gwynn murmurs the spell, and Mavrik’s hand tightens around both hers and Wynter’s, Gwynn’s heart thundering against her chest.

As her light magery breaksfree.

It rushes through Mavrik’s power with such intensity that her lungs contract andher vision sparks Issani gold, her magic shimmering through his wand hand and into the Verdyllion.

Gilded light bursts from the Wand and rays through the suspended runes before them.

The silver runes flash gold then miraculously multiply, countless identical silver runes springing out from them to form a huge interlocking barrier wall just as the spiders rear back and blast out bolts of roaring gray storm from their raised thorax holes, dark Shadow lightning arcing through it.

The Shadow storm slams into their silvery runic barrier, the sheer force of the Shadow assault driving their barrier back a few paces as the Subland soldiers closing in around their sides fire uncharged arrows and blades through the runic shield, the insects’ furious shrieks echoing against the cavern’s crystalline walls as they’re struck.

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