Chương 78: 20. Icicles

"Formation!" Lord Ashvale's voice echoed in the forest. His men stepped forward with shields and spears in their hands, forming what looked like a loose shield wall. Edrin unsheathed his blade, standing beside them. Clay soon joined him. Revel stood next to him, her staff already in her hand. In front of them, the woods were quaking. The trees rattled. Something big was coming their way. The men in front of him didn't panic. They were used to this. Well trained. He noted.

Revel's hand around the staff had whitened, her teeth clenched. They were in the middle of a small clearing, with trees on all sides. He wasn't sure if this was a good place to face something big, but it wasn't his call anyway. Edrin looked like he knew what he was doing.

"Get ready." The formation didn't change, but there was a small shift, almost unnoticeable. Their bodies straightened. Their stances grew more solid. Clay looked the same, but not as experienced as they were. The trees in front of them started parting, like a current crashing against a rock. Something was forcing them aside. He had a few guesses. Trolls. Like the ones that lay dead in front of the village palisade. There were other possibilities. But that seemed the most obvious, based on what he knew.

And the smell coming from their direction.

"Trolls," Edrin said.

"At least five." His gaze stayed fixed ahead, filled with determination.

"Two men on each. Mages, slow them down." Moments later, a grey head came into view. As tall as the trees. At least three meters tall. It placed its hands on the trees in front of it and pulled them aside as it moved forward. One of the sturdier ones snapped and fell to the ground. The other bent back into place, slightly crooked. Behind it, more creatures appeared, moving through the trees like the one in front. Three. Four. Six. There were seven of them. Enough for two men against each beast.

He didn't see them as a threat. Ashvale gave him an order, and he intended to follow it. There was no need to reveal his strength to strangers.

"Scatter." The soldiers scattered around the clearing in pairs. Their positions were calculated so that each beast would have to focus on a pair. Making the fight easier. Controlled. Clay moved with a soldier a few meters to the left. Edrin stood at the center with another. He glanced at Revel. She was sweating, her breath shallow. He had felt the same before. The responsibility to keep the men alive. To keep the enemy away from them. It was the hardest part of being a mage.

Supporting the fighters, making sure they made it through alive and whole.

"Breathe," Adolin said. She nodded, keeping her gaze forward, toward the trolls. The first beast entered the clearing. A broken tree still in its hand. It watched them for a moment before moving toward Edrin.

"Lord of the underworld and guardian of cattle, watcher of what lies below, hear me and grant me strength to bind my enemies. Shadow chains," Revel chanted. Black chains surged from the shadows, wrapping around the troll's legs as it charged Edrin. For the first time, Adolin was close enough to hear a chant. It wasn't what he had expected. Nor what he had tried to do. He hoped no one had heard his first attempt. Revel was calling on something real. A being. He didn't know what to make of it.

He would have to look into it later. For now, he focused on the battle in front of him. He had to improvise his own chants so they would sound real. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. The beast struggled for a few moments, then the chains broke. It was enough. Edrin pushed past it and cut the tendons in the troll's leg. The beast lost its footing, struggling to stand. The men with Edrin kept his attention on them, stabbing at its legs from the front.

All around him, battles were breaking out. On the left, a man dodged the tree that the troll swung at him, while the other stabbed its leg. Adolin took it all in. He muttered under his breath, "Ice… grant me the power to freeze." Then, in a normal voice, "Freeze." He cast Freeze beneath the troll that was losing its footing. The beast slipped. With its tendons cut, it couldn't regain its balance and fell to the ground. A loud thud followed.

Edrin took advantage of the opening and moved along the beast's back, stopping at its head. His sword flashed, the edge of the blade glinting with a bluish light before cutting through the troll's neck without resistance. One troll was dead. Six to go. He glanced at Clay, who was struggling against his own enemy. The man with him was running around the troll.

"Now," he shouted, before throwing his spear with impossible speed. The spear cut through the leg and buried itself in the ground beneath it, pinning the beast. Clay moved to the other side of the beast, cutting at the tendon. But his blade didn't go deep enough. Shadow chains erupted from the ground, wrapping around the hand of the beast that held the tree. The man drew his short blade and rushed next to Clay. He muttered something. His speed doubled, and his blade flashed the same way Edrin's had.

The leg was cut through. They didn't need his help, and Revel was focused on that fight. So he turned and focused on the next one. The beast was enraged, as it was bleeding from multiple holes in its leg. It was swinging the tree everywhere, trying to hit the soldiers, but they kept dodging. Enraged, it started charging toward the closest group, ignoring the ones it had been fighting previously. Adolin decided to act. Isolated trolls couldn't do much damage. But in groups, they were deadly.

There were a few spells that could solve the issue. He intended to use ones he hadn't used before. Ones that would deal with the problem quickly, without revealing too much of his strength. The best solution he could come up with was a combination of two lower-tier spells. He muttered under his breath, words that came to him.

"…Ice Wall." An ice wall appeared a few meters in front of the beast. Just tall enough to trip it. Enough that it would take a moment to reach it. Enough that he wouldn't need to cast both spells instantly and draw attention to himself. Three heartbeats later, the beast stumbled into the wall and fell face-first to the ground.

"… Ice Lance." A thick lance of ice erupted from the ground. The beast fell straight into it. It pierced through its head. Blood spread around it. It was dead. He glanced around. The beast Clay was fighting was dead. That made three. Four to go. Edrin was helping another group and was close to killing that one. Clay was already moving toward another, while Revel was casting chains around a different one. That left one group fighting alone, so he decided to lend them a hand.

They were doing far better than the previous pair. The beast was bleeding from all over its body. One man was running up along it, the other keeping it distracted. He stopped and steadied himself on the troll's shoulder. Adolin felt mana gathering around the man's spear, and he drove it into the head. The head exploded. The beast was dead. The men jumped from its shoulder and landed gracefully, while the body crashed to the ground a moment later. The carnage around the village walls made sense now.

Lord Ashvale and his men were monsters. Far better than anything he had expected. Clay looked like a normal human next to them. Knights. Even stronger than that, he estimated. A smile found its way onto his face. Monsters streamed from the same direction the trolls had come from. Dozens. The same kind that attacked the village. It seemed the next wave meant for the village had found them instead. He wasn't sure if they could take them all out before running out of mana and exhausting themselves. He chuckled.

"Lend me rain… Ice Shower." As the words left his mouth, he grimaced. He needed to work on that. A small cloud formed above the forest. Moments later, icicles began to form and fall onto the wave. They weren't powerful on their own, but in numbers, they were death by a thousand cuts. An orc entered the clearing. A small icicle pierced his leg. He stumbled and roared in pain. Then another pierced his hand. He clutched the wound, dropping the axe he was carrying.

A few more icicles, and he was on the ground, bleeding from dozens of wounds, wailing. One pierced his head and ended its misery. The same was happening all around the clearing. Adolin felt his mana draining faster and faster. But he didn't mind. The spell was worth it. By the time another troll entered the clearing, the last of the trolls had fallen. Everyone turned toward the new enemies pouring from the trees, forming into a shield wall.

"Fuck," came from Revel's direction.