Page 73 of Wizards & Weavers
And just as suddenly his posture straightened, his spine as rigid as every deadly spear in his royal retinue, his shoulders broad and powerful. His head held high, Emeritas looked every bit a king, imperious, radiant, majestic. He swept his arm forward and pointed a single elegant finger.
“Seize the crown princess. By any means necessary.”
The horned warrior threw his hands up, as if insulted that his own party — sandwiched between Braiden’s friends and the elves — had been completely forgotten. The orc whirled in place, baring his teeth as he gauged which side of the chamber needed smashing first.
Metal screamed and clanged throughout the cavern as the elven king’s forces collided with the other party. In their eyes, those people were no different than Braiden and his companions: all were considered a threat to the crown princess.
Braiden approached the melee cautiously, letting the fighters in his group take the lead. He strongly suspected that the king was a powerful spellcaster in his own right, if only he wasn’t so busy throwing his arms out and calling for his sweet, beloved Pookie. To be fair, his ululations still had an effect on the battle. Elyssandra couldn’t fight quite as fiercely when she kept flinching from the sound of her nickname.
“Why is it so damn cold in here?” the Gwerenese woman asked, indignant even as her blade flashed in a dangerous crescent. “Even more so than the rest of this blasted dungeon.”
“There’s a concentrated cube of elemental ice right through that crack,” Elyssandra replied, twirling her spear and fending off Falina’s attacks while somehow carrying on a casualconversation. “It exploded and opened passages to the surface. It’s what uncovered the dungeon in the first place.”
“A likely story,” shouted Fedro, bringing his blade down in a deadly spike, aiming for Warren’s chest. “I’m sure there’s treasure through there, and that’s why this Wizard of Weathervale wants to seal this place up once he’s looted it all for himself.”
A few quick cracks of his quarterstaff and Warren had not only deflected the Gwerenese man’s strikes, but disarmed him, too. His blade slid across the ice with a scrape and a clatter.
“Believe what you will, round-ears. That cube is a threat to my people and to all who live on the surface. Let us pass, or suffer the consequences.”
The orc answered by charging forward with a terrifying bellow and an upraised hammer. A single smash would crack open someone’s skull. From those crazed eyes, Braiden couldn’t tell if the orc was aiming for Warren or Augustin.
He didn’t wait to find out. His heart so close to bursting from his chest, Braiden unspooled the tangle of panic building in his body, firing it as a spray of conjured thread.
A massive quantity of string spun around the orc’s rampaging form, wrapping him in a messy cocoon. Far from Braiden’s finest work, but it would have to do. The orc toppled to the ground with a great, thunderous crash.
The Gwerenese twins cried out at the sight of their fallen ally. With a little sense of smugness, Braiden noted the look in both of their eyes, how they’d rejected him at the Dragon’s Flagon. It wasn’t their fault, of course, and Braiden had enough sense not to feel too sore about it. He knew he wasn’t the most imposing thing to look at. Sometimes big things came in small, skinny packages.
He took a beat to study the twins, noting their mutual fondness for fine clothes, Falina in her frilly blouse and tighttrousers, Fedro in a gaudily embellished open vest that did little to hide the fine musculature of his torso. Braiden also noticed their mutual fondness for fine leather boots. Fine leather boots with laces.
Braiden clicked his fingers, engaging the spell from Card No. 37, untying Fedro and Falina’s shoelaces with a mischievous burst of magic, then retying them to each other. The twins tripped over themselves and crashed into a cursing, sputtering heap.
Three down, three to go. Elyssandra engaged the remaining Gwerenese fighters. In one smooth motion, Warren reached for his hip and hurled his bolas toward them. The Gwerenese sliced the bolas strings at the last moment, sending the spiked balls hurtling uselessly away. Warren shrugged, unperturbed, and rushed them with his staff.
And now the horned warrior was bearing down on Braiden himself. Braiden took a moment to feel flattered before the horned warrior raised his sinister sword of blackest midnight.
“Hello again, from the craft shop,” the horned warrior said in a pleasant, tinny tone. “It’s nothing personal, you understand.”
The sword whizzed as it sliced through the air.
The air whizzed back as a furious, howling wind slammed into the horned warrior’s body. His armor clanged like an almighty bell as Augustin’s conjured vortex threw him off his feet, then propelled him at a frightening pace toward King Emeritas and his cluster of elven warriors.
Pained screams and the sound of clanging, crashing metal echoed around the cavern as the horned warrior collided with the captain of the king’s guard, the sheer weight and velocity slamming with all the force of a cannonball.
One armored man ricocheted to another, and another, an expensive and extremely injurious game of lawn bowls. Barely visible to the naked eye, Augustin’s whirlwind howled andwhooshed as it slammed the warriors against each other again and again, too weighed down by their armor and their kingly palanquin to escape. King Emeritas toppled from his seat with a terrified yowl.
With a single well-placed spell, Augustin Arcosa had taken the elven king’s contingent out of the fight. Braiden finally understood. This was why they hailed him as a hero. This was why they called this man the Wizard of Weathervale. Augustin swept his hair out of his eyes with one hand, shooting Braiden an arrogant smirk. Braiden tried his very hardest not to swoon.
Flowing like water, with all the grace of a pair of dancers, Warren and Elyssandra fought off their Gwerenese opponents with twirling stave and spear. Finally finding a weak point to attack, they knocked their opponents out with synchronized cracks to the side of the skull.
“I think we did all right,” Braiden said, panting heavily, “but my restraints won’t hold forever, and those armored warriors are going to pick themselves up pretty soon. We still need to make it out of here in one piece.”
Something sharp jabbed into Braiden’s back. He yelped, terrified that someone with a blade had snuck up behind him — but it was only the living skeleton. Gods, his fingers were sharp. Maybe he was still getting used to being made entirely of bones.
“You,” the skeleton rasped. “Stringy. The strings you make, can you make them thin and slender? As fine as you can manage. Hurry!”
“I really don’t want ‘stringy’ to stick,” Braiden said, too anxious to be seriously offended, “but yes. I can conjure thinner threads. Why does that matter?”
The skeleton thrust his hips forward. Braiden stepped back. He never expected the undead to be quite so presumptuous.
