Emilia and Troy had devised a plan as they ran, and now, as they neared the Treant, they put it into action. Troy fell back and dissolved into the shadows. Meanwhile, Emilia flexed her free hand as she came within a spear's length of the treant.

  “Fist of the Created!”

  A deep green glow flashed from beneath her gloves, revealing a patchwork of sutures and surgical scars. Then she leapt and unleashed her might on the treant. Her fist plunged deep into the treant's trunk, reaching inside. She opened her hand and gripped tightly, locking herself in place. All according to plan, Emilia thought as she heard the treant's cry of pain and anguish, and as she heard the monstrous creature scream, she allowed herself a rare grin; before she struck. She raised her torch and smashed the burning head against the dry wood around her. Each time she struck, a different part of the trunk caught fire, each spot burning like a beacon.

  Unfortunately for her, this treant was not disoriented like Brad, and it found the source of its pain and fire. It brought both of its arms down on its trunk, aiming for Emilia. Its lichwood arms struck three times, the first two blows hitting with lethal force. The last blow was delivered with a sweeping motion, the treant intent on removing the harmful debris on top of it, namely Emilia. She took the first two blows to the shoulder, managing to withstand the damage and maintain her grip. The third blow, with its sweeping motion, knocked her loose and she found herself in a sliding fall.

  Quickly, she dug her feet in, caught them on the forehead of the blind but glaring face, and kicked herself away. Twisting in the air, she landed facing the treant.

  Fist and torch at the ready, she braced herself for more retaliation. Instead, she watched as the tree person's legs went up in flames.

  Radiant and shining like a star. The flames licked up the tree person's legs, slowly consuming them even as the creature tried to extinguish them. When the star flame reached her green flame, they merged and burned faster than before; the treant simply could not contend with them.

  “Thanks for agreeing to distract it, I wouldn't have survived those blows.”

  While Emilia and Troy dealt with their Treant, Jaeger and Sivly moved on theirs. Without a bruiser to knock it back or a tank to meet it blow for blow, they had to use a different tactic. Jaeger was up front, pelting it with blows from his axe and torch. The treant, perhaps smarter than the others or simply lucky, managed to avoid or smother the spots where his torch struck, extinguishing the flames before they could take hold. It could not do the same for his axe blows, which landed and left deep gashes in its wooden body.

  Death by a thousand cuts would work, but it would take too long; that was where Sivly came in.

  While Jaeger distracted and provoked it, she had stayed out of its sight and tried to use her magic. She was restricted in that she could not rely on her most used spells because they would unleash a torrent of water. This would be a debilitating problem for a lesser mage, but as an accomplished Wave Skimmer, she knew that waves could be more than just water. Now all she had to do was put her new ideas into practice.

  “How's it going back there?” An impatient voice called out, interrupting her process. “I don't want to do this much longer, my blows ain’t doing much to it.”

  She rolled her eyes, everyone thought magic was easy and quick. Chant a few words, wave your hands, and boom. Sure, if you got your power from a higher or lower being like a warlock or cleric, it was. But for real mages like herself, it was all about understanding. Right now she was trying to change her own understanding of how a spell worked and what it did.

  This was usually a task of days or weeks, done in safety and comfort, not on a muddy field in the middle of battle. She was only trying this now because she was using a simple spell, one of her most used, and she wasn't trying to change it fundamentally; she was adjusting the element, she needed the water to be frozen.

  “Damnation, how long is she gonna take?”

  Muttering to himself, he glanced back at the mage, which was a bad idea while dodging. Jaeger stumbled over an exposed root, landing on his chest, and scrambled to get out from under a descending blow.

  Thud.

  Instead of landing in the middle of his back, it landed on his shoulder, shattering it with a sickening crack and causing him to drop his torch.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  As it rolled across the ground, its flame went out, leaving him one arm down and without fire. Rising to his feet, he tucked his immobile arm into his cloak, where an inside pocket had been made simply to hold his arm in place.

  He tightened his grip on his axe, trying to focus and ignore his pain, and turned to face the treant. Jaeger had hoped to keep his pistol a secret in case the Swords leader was watching, but he may not have a choice. He slams his axe into the ground and reaches for his storage pocket as the treant begins to lumber toward him.

  Chirp!

  Just as he feels the smooth, hard obsidian of the pistol grip, a sharp chirp cuts through the air and a blur of frozen mass flies past him. Drawing his pistol, he recovers and watches as a wedge of something strikes the treant. The wedge was the size of a donkey and hit the treant like one, causing it to stumble backwards as its trunk cracked and splintered.

  “Call me Nurrna, for like the North Sea, I bring ice sledges!”

  Arriving at his side, having slid over to him, was Sivly. He replaced his pistol and drew his powder horn instead.

  “You do that?”

  “By sea and sky I did indeed. This is a modified version of Tidal Wave, it's lost a bit of size, but now it's made of ice; well, it's mostly mud, but that's because of the area. Good job holding back the treant, by the way, what's up with your arm?”

  “I took a blow from the treant, stalling for you. It popped free, but I’m about to solve that.”

  “As an apology for the wait, let me heal it. Be ready though, this is going to feel weird.” With that, she placed her hands on his damaged arm and he felt a rush of warm water flow over it, followed by a squirming sensation in the flesh of his shoulder. It was an excruciating sensation as he felt his body move. He could feel the meat and muscle of his body realigning itself until, with a crack, his shoulder was fixed.

  Then the sensation disappeared. He freed his arm from its improvised sling and rolled his shoulder hesitantly, expecting pain or strain and instead felt nothing but smooth motion.

  “That is much better, thank you.”

  Jaeger put away his powder horn and looked for his torch. Sivly held it up and pressed it into his hand.

  “You saved my life and the lives of my friends, this is the least I can do. Now take up your torch, bounty hunter, I've got a nice follow-up for this treant that I could use your help with.”

  She smiled at him and thrust her trident forward. A layer of mud appeared, and with a running start she hopped onto it, sliding quickly toward the treant. Jaeger ran after her, dodging her mud trail as he did so.

  As they approached, Sivly chirped again, but this time it was longer and louder. At the end of the noise, she slammed the butt of her trident down and the frozen tidal wave exploded forward. Shards of icy mud pierced the treant all over.

  It had managed to push the sledge backwards, only to be hit by this. It could do nothing but cover its twisted face as the frozen bombardment continued.

  “I'm going to melt the mud and raise a ramp. Use it to hit it from above.”

  Jaeger reached Sivly's side and grunted in acknowledgement. She made a series of gestures with her free hand, waving her trident and then slamming the butt into the ground; things happened in quick succession.

  The treant, which had been struggling to move thanks to the frozen shrapnel inside it, was momentarily freed as the mud liquefied and slid down it. It tried to move again, but now found itself hampered in a different way, the mud coating its limbs and impeding its movements. Finally, a lumpy ramp of thick mud rose from the wet ground, and the hunter could hear the slurping of its ascent.

  “Really?” Jaeger asked as he sparked his magic to light the torch.

  “It's the best I can do. Hurry, I'll rip the water out of it to dry it, but as soon as I do it will start to crumble.”

  He shook his head and began to run. Just as he reached the edge of the ramp, it changed right in front of his feet. It went from wet mud to dry riverbed in a matter of seconds, and as he took his first step he could tell he wouldn't last long. Disregarding caution, he shot up the ramp, each step a deep push forward, almost hopping with each step. When he reached the top of this wagon-sized ramp, he jumped.

  After jumping, Jaeger looked ahead and saw that he was heading straight for the gnarled top of the tree. He raised his arms and braced himself as he crashed through the dry and sharp leafless branches. As soon as he hit the solid top, he brought his axe down, chopping through the limbs until he reached the trunk. When the tree moaned, he redoubled his efforts and chopped twice more, leaving a gaping wound. When he had it wide enough, he pulled his axe back and plunged the torch deep into it.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then, like a struck match, the treant went up, the bounty hunter was struck by a blast of heat and was sent flying.

  “Jaeger!”

  Sivly saw the bounty hunter fly from the treant, which was now erupting in fire and howling. As she watched the man fly high into the sky, she knew he wouldn't survive the fall if she didn't do something.

  So she chanted, waved her trident, and summoned her trusty Tidal Wave. It rose high, caught his falling body, and broke his fall. He was still falling, but now she could manipulate it and slow it down.

  Quickly, she made the wave grow smaller as it moved toward her, slowly receding from the height of a tower to no larger than a wagon. As Jaeger broke free, he gasped for air and collapsed to the ground.

  Sivly moves to check him, but is waved off. He slowly gets to his feet and picks up his hat, which has somehow survived not only his flight, but also his swim.

  “This is the second time you've saved me. I owe you.”

  Jaeger said, meeting her eyes.

  “You have destroyed my camp, routed my men, destroyed my treant minions, and you won't have the grace to just die. Why do I have to do everything myself?”

  A dark green sword slammed into Sivly, sending her hurtling into Jaeger.