Chapter 7
"How much farther?" Searen complained. "I think I twisted my ankle on that rock back there."
"Not much, just over that hill and-"
"Look out!" Rowan pushed everyone onto the ground.
"What? What happened?" Yunae looked confusedly around the field.
"Fire trolls, they shoot fire arrows and use flaming swords to attack." She pointed at the hairy humanoid creatures as they spoke gibberish to each other.
"I got this." Rouse pointed her crossbows at them and prepared to fire.
"No!" She hit Rouse's shoulder lightly. "They attack in groups of up to twenty, we must be careful."
"How about an invisible spell?" Auros added. "I'm still working on it, but I can create an invisible wall so we can see them but they can't see us."
"Perfect, then let's attack them from behind right?" Searen asked as if waiting for an insult from Rowan.
"Yeah! just what I was thinking." Rowan cleared her throat. "But don't get used to me complimenting you, cause it ain't gonna happen much." she corrected herself.
"Alrighty then, ready Auros?" Salem asked as Auros pulled out his spellbook.
"Good to go, illusion wall!" He yelled as a wall of invisibility appeared in front of the group. They snuck behind the trolls and readied their weapons.
"How many are there? I need to know so I can figure out which monster to summon." Yunae looked at the others.
"I see five." Searen counted the beasts as he sharpened his lance on a rock.
"Ok, then maybe a mini draco?" she whispered.
"What are those?" Searen asked stopping the sharpening of his lance.
"A smaller version of a dragon, the bigger the monster, the more stress on my magical powers." Yunae said darkly.
"'Stress?'" Rouse repeated in question.
"All spellcasters have a limit, mine is how many of a certain spell I can cast a day." Auros answered.
"Yeah, and I get weaker the bigger the monster I summon." Yunae polished her staff.
"You can put down the wall, let's prepare for attack." Rowan took the axe off of the holder on her back.
Yunae readied her staff. "I summon mini draco!" She told the staff quietly. "This monster will die when it takes too much damage." She said in a whisper over her shoulder to her companions.
"We each go for one, there's six of us, five of them." Salem's eyes darted from each troll.
"Got it." the group said all at once. They rushed onto the field weapons flying. Rouse quickly killed one wielding a bow. Searen threw his lance at one troll missing, and getting it stuck in the ground, he pulled it out and stabbed one with a sword, in the head.
"Ew, troll brains, and blood." Searen began to wipe the lance on a tree. Yunae commanded the draco to kill a bow carrier, bad choice because the bow troll shot the poor draco in the heart killing it instantly, the spirit of the draco vanished and there was no blood.
"What was that?" Rouse looked at Yunae.
"Well, my summons are just spirits of the dead monsters, they act as if they're alive, but when the get hurt there is no blood and when they die, they just fade back to where they were before I summoned them. I can only summon one monster at a time." She cleared up the confusion.
"I'll get him." Rouse swiftly shot the bow carrier in the neck. Auros was messing around with a sword holder, dodging all the attacks and laughing.
"Pathetic," He pulled out two daggers and shot the troll square in the eyes. attacking madly, the troll swung his sword hitting Auros in the arm. "Gah!" He fell to the ground in pain.
"Don't worry, I got your back." Rowan disregarded her troll, the leader, and sliced the sword wielder's head off.
"Auros!" Salem yelled as the leader troll wielding a log believe it or not, swung it and smacked Salem right in the head. "Going down." he said quietly. Yunae ran up and dragged Salem out of the wake of the leader.
"I'll distract him." Rowan sped past them and teased the leader, Rouse and Searen following close behind.
"Yunae, help Auros, he's got a huge gash and burn, I'll be fine for now." Salem croaked. She nodded and took off toward Auros. She healed Auros's wound and helped him get up.
"Come on, you help the others distract the leader, I'll see if I can help Salem." Yunae said quickly as Auros turned his hat the right way and full of determination, went and over to surprise the leader with a shower of daggers.
"Everyone step back, I've prepared a spell that can kill this thing and anything in range, get behind a tree!" Auros's book began to float on its own pages turning, and landing on the red-rimmed fire pages. A giant fireball began to form, he sent it directly in front of the troll leader. Sending out a giant wave of fire, it crisped the troll, and part of Auros. Rowan, Searen and Rouse peered out from behind the safety of the fire-proof trees. Auros, getting his arm burnt, fell over in pain again. "At least I got him too." Auros grunted in pain.
Yunae sighed and casted a heal spell on him so he'd stop complaining, getting up he joined the other three. Everyone walked over the Yunae, still trying to help Salem. "Can you help him?" Searen asked.
"Of course I can, just give me some space and I can heal him." she waved her hands around signaling everyone to back up.
"Heal spell!" she shouted, nothing happened. "Heal spell?" she tried again, still, nothing happened.
"Do you happen to be out of spells?" Auros asked.
"I don't run out of heal spells." she answered worriedly.
"Is he... dead?" Searen gulped as tears began to form in his eyes.