The Eight

Chapter 14 - Showdown

A fairy came rushing up to the ShadowMage, who was relaxing contentedly on his black throne. He always sat in that throne, just to look the part.

"The prisoners are awake, master," the fairy said and was dismissed with the wave of a hand. "Tell the guards to bring them up," the Mage shouted after her, and settled himself to look powerful and commanding.

Alex was forced in first, being the only boy there. The girls stumbled in behind him, pushed by five large cyclops - the Shadowmage wasn't taking any chances with the humans.

He got up and started pacing.

"My friends," he smiled. "Welcome to my castle, I trust you were treated well?"

They had been given a small room with a springy bed while the dungeons were being repaired. It was very comfortable, but the friends didn't show that they thought so.

When no one answered, a flicker of annoyance crossed the Mage's face but he kept the smile plastered there.

"I hope you have had a good time," he said. "Because now you get to die."

***

Everyone was gathered to watch the destruction of the humans that had plagued their master for so long.

Everything from dwarves to chimeras lined the killing yard, some watching in anticipation while others prayed for it to be over.

There was a roar from the crowd as the ShadowMage stepped up onto a podium, and raised his arms, basking in the glory. There were hollers as the friends were marched up, hands bound behind their backs with thick rope, heads bowed.

The Mage settled his face into a featureless mask and focused on the little group huddled before him. As a crackling dark ball of energy grew between his hands, the crowd's roars got louder. Then there was absolute silence as the Mage flung his arms above his head and threw the lightning ball. It shot like an arrow across to the friends, but they were ready. Breanna and Cherry combined fire and water in a spinning shield, Abbie ready to draw anything that would help. Alex mind-controlled their guards down into the crowd while Sofia got ready with her blades and Chloe with her fists and feet. Cera was ready to distract, Jodie ready to shift. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as that lightning hurtled towards them, not a whisper, not a breath. Then everything became real again as the energy hit the shield and Cherry and Breanna were thrown backwards. Sofia threw blades and Jodie kicked with Chloe at anyone who came near. Alex made others climb over the castle walls and away, Abbie grappling with a snapping demon beside him. Cera ran rings around everyone, buying time and throwing a punch here and there. The astonished and cowardly ShadowMage ran inside but no one pursued him as the fight in the courtyard escalated. Suddenly there was a screech from above and the birds, their birds, were diving low, the animals soaring from their backs and among them was Farai, swinging a huge double-edged blade as he somersaulted from the Alter Eagle.

Flames flickered as dragons and phoenixes from the basalt mines joined in, trailing chains. Farai shouted at the friends for them to go, then winked and whirled away into the seething mass. Abbie made a pegasus and they all piled on, swooping across the chaotic scene. The jagged towers gave up the ShadowMage's position through one of the many windows and the pegasus crashed right through it, getting up unhurt and flying back out while its riders got to their feet. They all charged up the narrow steps, coming to a beautiful ballroom at the top. There the Mage turned to them, aching for a fight. Now they were confined; it was much easier to aim.

He threw a knife, which was parried and returned by Sofia. It hit the Mage in his upper arm but he merely dissolved and solidified again, the wound already healed. He gave a nasty grin and bombarded the friends with little lightning bolts that shot in their hundreds from his fingertips.

Cherry screamed as she was hit, practically creating a small tsunami of seawater as she went down. Chloe dragged her to a corner and started healing. This fight was already proving almost impossible - the Mage was almost invincible.

He threw a boulder and Alex held it with his mind, almost recoiling in shock. He was telekinetic too?!

Jodie made it all the way across the room as a tawny owl and sank her claws into the Mage's head. He shouted and whacked her off. She hit a wall and crumpled to the ground.

There was one terrible moment where Breanna managed to partially melt him and the side of his skull-face distorted and dripped like something out of a horror movie. What was he made of?!

The Mage recovered, however, but found he was unable to dissolve and reform. He was stuck as a solid being and Cera took her chance. Grabbing a sword that Sofia, lying injured on the ground managed to produce, she sprinted as fast as she could towards her enemy. The blade sank deep into his chest and he shuddered, but still stood. Cera watched in horror as he grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it out of his chest, closing up the wound. He swung the sword and Cera ducked, but received a boot to her chin. The crack was clearly audible and she went sailing across the room, smacking against the opposite wall and hitting the ground with a thud next to Abbie, who had been hit by a metal disc. Only Alex and a newly healed Cherry still stood, the weapon and the shield. Sofia could still conjure weapons and Alex had a good aim. But Cherry was tiring, having kept up the shield for so long and the ShadowMage knew it. He got two throwing knives, enchanted them so he could move them with his mind, and threw one. It was calculated to go over the slowly diminishing water shield and only graze Cherry's arm. She cried out in pain but still stood. The water shield momentarily wavered as she lost concentration and the second knife was thrown. It hit Cherry's shoulder this time, near her collarbone, and she dived down next to Chloe to be healed and have the pain taken away.

Alex collapsed down too, exhausted. The Mage grinned, holding up a shield with one hand to protect himself from anything else and flicked his other hand. Suddenly they were all outside the castle. The friends cowered as their enemy advanced.

"So," he said. "You have put up a good fight, my friends. But this is where it ends." He took another step.

"I have brought you here so you could see the land that you sought to save, the land that I rule over. The land that you failed to save. But, of course, this was never a battle for children.

"Everyone is dead inside those castle walls, and now you will be too, out here on this barren little hill." He stopped ten paces away from them and threw back his arm. There was a whirling ball of darkness - it looked a little like a portal, but wasn't - in his hand, and suddenly it was coming forward and in that second Alex knew what he had to do. Standing up, swaying with exhaustion, he focused on the dark power. With tremendous energy he tried to veer it away from them, but it wasn't enough. The darkness smashed into his stomach, the impact sending him backwards off the little hill. The ShadowMage was hit too, when the energy rebounded, and dissipated into nothingness with a howl.

Chloe scrambled up and threw herself down the hill after Alex. The others followed and found her desperately trying to heal the gaping, smouldering wound in his stomach but it wasn't working. There must have been some sort of charm on the energy that meant a hit from it could not close over and heal itself, or be healed. Alex groaned and his eyelids fluttered, but didn't open.

"We should take him back up the hill," Abbie murmured. "It's too dark down here." No one protested and Alex was gently lifted back up.

"He's not going to make it," Chloe said quietly, her voice cracking. When the sound of wings above came to their ears, no one even cared. Then the phoenix and dragon that they had ridden so long ago alighted next to them and there was a fairy and an elf sitting on their backs. The fairy sprinkled something on Alex's body and then she and the elf left, soaring up on the two fiery creatures. When the friends looked back Alex's body was crumbling into dust and disappearing into the earth. A single tear made its way down each of the girls' faces, dropping simultaneously to the bone-dry ground that their fallen friend had lain upon moments before. And, as if by magic, the earth trembled slightly and a little green shoot appeared.

And then the tears were flowing freely down the girls' faces and falling to the ground in a torrent. A breeze sprang up and dried the little rivulets running down their dusty skin, but still the friends cried. They cried for their lives before this realm, the Keeper, the journey to the castle, all their friends dead inside those walls, but most of all they cried for Alex. They cried for the friend they knew they would never see again.