"It is so good to see you again, Panther," Vilfortz said with a smile as the fireballs in his palms swelled brighter.
Leo said nothing. He kept his eyes fixed on the mage's hands. Then he burst forward—daggers up, body blurring into a streak of dark blue.
Vilfortz only grinned wider. Dropping to his knees, he pressed both hands to the ground and muttered an incantation.
Leo caught a shift in the air. "Tch." An arrow hissed past his cheek, leaving behind a faint red line.
A roar rolled through the trees. Twigs snapped. The elves Leo had killed moments ago twitched… then rose, boned cracking, eyes glowing a ghastly red. Of the five he'd slain, only four stood again; the one he'd split to pieces stayed dead.
The undead archer drew and fired. Leo slipped left, the shaft grazing his cloak. He brought a dagger up just in time to catch the swing of a charging corpse.
The white-haired elf lunged with a roar. Two more elved closed from his back while the archer kept shooting, pinning Leo's movement.
Leo shut his eyes and drew a slow breath.
The first corpse thrust with reckless power; bone already splintering in its hand. Leo's blade flashed. The body split cleanly in two. He spun, ducked another arrow, and drove his gauntleted fist through a second elf's face, pulping skull and brain.
Pain flared. The white-haired one slipped through and slashed Leo's shoulder—deep, almost to the bone. Vilfortz had expected the arm to come off.
Leo hissed, caught the corpse's wrist, and with a roar punched straight through its gut, hurling it backward.
"This is bad," he muttered, glancing at the blood running down his right arm.
Arrows kept coming. Fast. Too fast. Leo's pupils narrowed; his eyes shining blue as he pushed his senses harder. He sprinted forward. One sweeping claw strike—five vivid lines—and the archer came apart, chunks raining down in a wet spray that splashed across Vilfortz's face.
"Well done, assassin." Vilfortz clapped. Fresh fire bloomed in each hand. "I picked up a few pointers for improving my necromancy."
Leo snorted. "Elves once honored their dead. What happened? Let me guess—another gift to your 'Great Cleansing'?"
Vilfortz's smile cracked. "You know too much. I can't let you leave here alive."
A torrent of flame roared from his hands, a column wide enough to incinerate the clearing. Trees blackened. Night lit orange.
Leo planted his feet and slashed both daggers in an X. Two pale cuts of azure light crossed in front of him. The firebeam split into four and guttered out.
Vilfortz's expression hardened. He slammed a palm down. "Mother Earth!"
A thick wall of stone surged up—then fell apart in four perfect slabs, sheared as cleanly as cheese.
"That wasn't a spell," he breathed. "No signs. No chant. Is it—an ability?"
A ghostly slash whined toward his head. Vilfortz reacted on instinct, liquefying the ground beneath him. He sank waist-deep into mud as the cut screamed past, shredding trees where his neck had been.
"That was close." He forced a grin. "So the big slashes leave a visible trail. I can still win this."
Movement flickered between the trunks. Vilfortz fired a sweeping beam of flame, clearing a swath of forest and filling the air with acrid smoke.
High above, Leo crouched on a branch, watching. When he sensed the mage shaping a sensory spell, he launched himself downward.
Vilfortz completed the scan, swore, and triggered a prepared ward. A dome of fire snapped around him just as a shadow fell from above.
"It's time to finish this!" Leo growled.
His body twisted mid-fall, fur rippling out of skin. He hit as a midnight-blue panther, claws slashing forward . One swipe ripped open the fire dome.
Vilfortz abandoned the ward and thrust both hands down. Spires of earth burst upward to impale the panther—but Leo had already launched again, clearing the spikes and charging.
"You leave me no choice, human," the elf spat, retreating. He chanted in sharp Elvish, crimson runes igniting in a circle beneath his feet. Blood streamed from one eye.
Leo lunged to break the casting but smashed against a force field that flared around the mage. He skidded back, ears flat, teeth bared.
"That's demon magic," he growled. "Forbidden. I thought the Order of the Sun wiped every practitioner."
---
Within the Phoenix Alliance, four magics are outlawed on sight:
Slave Magic which binds the will and soul of mortals, Necromancy; the raising and manipulation of the dead, Monster Magic which summons creatures from foreign realms and finally Demon (Chaos) Magic that opens paths to malevolent beings beyond the mortal world.
Practitioners of these heinous arts were normally executed by the Order of the Sun—or, if spared, banished to another realn where they never returned. Cases of slave magic or necromancy still surfaced from time to time. Demon magic? None confirmed in a century.
Until tonight.
The runes dimmed, then burned blood-red. Vilfortz's mouth twisted as another voice forced its way through his throat.
"It has been so long since I tasted a soul," it snarled. "Now… it's time to EAT."