Page 51 of Frostforge: Passage Four
Storm sharks.The creatures were drawn to the magical discharge, their dorsal fins cutting through the waves like knives.Escape by swimming was suicide.
Thalia repositioned herself, shoulder to shoulder with Felah, whose young face was streaked with tears and ash.Around them, the remnants of other squads had formed a ragged defensive line.Fourth-years shouted commands to their terrified first-years, trying to maintain some semblance of order in the chaos.But Thalia could see the truth in their eyes — they were making their last stand.
Then came a sound that vibrated through her bones — a deep, resonant boom that momentarily silenced even the thunder overhead.The air temperature plummeted so suddenly that Thalia's next breath emerged as a cloud of vapor.
Across the fjord, a lone figure stood on the southern dock.Even at this distance, Thalia recognized Instructor Virek's slight frame.He had his palms pressed together, a nimbus of blue-white energy surrounding him like a second skin.As she watched, he separated his hands in a violent outward motion.
The effect was immediate and awe-inspiring.
A wave of cryomantic power surged from his palms, racing across the water's surface with impossible speed.Where it touched, the black water froze solid in an expanding sheet of ice.Jagged crystalline formations erupted upward, catching the light of fires and lightning in a thousand refractions.The sound was deafening — the groaning protest of an entire fjord transformed in moments.
Thalia stared in disbelief as the ice spread from shore to shore, creating a bridge where moments before there had been only churning water.It was the most spectacular display of cryomancy she had ever witnessed, far beyond what she'd believed possible.The storm sharks, caught in the sudden freeze, thrashed frantically before being entombed in the advancing ice.
For a heartbeat, everything stilled.The fighting paused as both sides processed this unexpected development.Then, across the newly formed ice field, shapes began to move — dozens of figures sprinting toward them from the distant academy.
"Reinforcements," Thalia breathed, hope kindling in her chest for the first time since the attack began.
The instructors led the charge, their forms blurred with speed as they skated across the ice with practiced ease.Behind them came the third-years, armored and armed for war rather than training.And behind the students, moving with mechanical precision, came the golems.
Dozens of ice-metal constructs, their joints hissing with frost, their metal limbs gleaming in the pre-dawn light.Among them, Thalia recognized a familiar silhouette — broader in the shoulders than the others, ice-brass rather than the usual ice-steel or iron, with blade-arms that glowed with residual heat from the forge.
Falchion.Her creation.Her golem.
The construct she had forged in her second year moved with deadly purpose, its steps leaving shallow imprints in the ice.Pride surged through her, momentarily displacing her fear.Her work was coming to their aid.
"Get the wounded ready to move," she ordered Daniel."We're retreating across the ice as soon as they reach us."
On the frozen fjord, the battle shifted.Isle Wardens, realizing their advantage was slipping away, launched a desperate offensive.They charged toward the students, lightning crackling from their fingertips, determined to claim lives before reinforcements could arrive.
Thalia saw Wolfe at the forefront of the approaching force, her face carved from fury.Ice erupted from the ground at her feet with each step, sending shock waves across the frozen surface.Beside her, Marr moved with a limp, blood staining his glass-threaded cloak, but his expression was no less determined.How he had survived and reached them, Thalia couldn't fathom, but relief flooded through her at the sight of the Southern instructor.
"Now!"she shouted to her first-years."Move toward them!Stay low!"
As the injured students began their halting retreat across the ice, the Wardens made their move.A volley of lightning bolts streaked toward the vulnerable students, the air crackling with deadly energy.
Thalia dropped to one knee, bracing her shield before her.Three bolts struck the ice-titanium surface in rapid succession, the impact nearly driving her backward.She gritted her teeth, channeling the energy through the metal and into the ice beneath her.The shield grew hot in her grip but held firm.
Nearby, Roran stepped into the path of the remaining lightning.With a fluid motion of his hands, he caught the energy and redirected it, sending it back toward the Wardens who had launched it.The attackers scattered, their own power turned against them.
"Keep going!"Thalia urged the first-years."Don't stop!"
The two forces collided at the center of the fjord in an explosion of ice, steel, and magic.Golems tore through the Warden ranks with mechanical efficiency, their ice-metal limbs impervious to the lightning that glanced off their surfaces.Instructor Virek moved like a dancer through the chaos, each gesture of his hands sending shards of ice erupting from the frozen surface to impale unwary opponents.
Caught between the academy's forces and the students they had come to slaughter, the Isle Wardens began to falter.Their coordinated attacks devolved into individual struggles for survival as they found themselves outnumbered and outflanked.
"Retreat!"A voice carried across the battlefield, deep and commanding."Back to the ships!"
The effect was immediate.Wardens disengaged from their opponents, falling back toward the western edge of the fjord where their vessels lay partially encased in ice.They moved with the discipline of trained soldiers, covering each other's withdrawal with bursts of lightning that forced their pursuers to take cover.
Thalia helped Rasmus to his feet, supporting his weight as they made their way toward the approaching instructors.Around them, other students did the same, half-carrying wounded companions across the treacherous surface.The first-years' faces were blank with shock, the reality of combat having stripped away any romantic notions of warfare they might have harbored.
Golems pursued the retreating Wardens, ensuring they continued their withdrawal rather than regrouping for another attack.The sounds of battle diminished, replaced by the creaking of ice and the groans of the wounded.
The Isle Wardens' ships began to break free of the surrounding ice, their hulls splintering the frozen surface as they turned toward the fjord's inlet.Thalia watched them go, a strange emptiness settling in her chest where fear had resided moments before.They had survived.Somehow, against all odds, they had survived.
Dawn light crept across the horizon, painting the ice field in soft pinks and golds.The storm clouds dissipated, the unnatural lightning fading with the Wardens' retreat.For a moment, it seemed as though the worst was over.
Then Wolfe raised her hand.Not in triumph, but in command.
