The Everburning City

Interlude II, The Last Full Measure, Part 1

"Are you sure we should be left to ourselves?" Another Crafter asked. Ulia, Sally realized after a moment. She had never actually heard the Crafter speak before. "I've seen what happens when we lose ourselves, Garland. Stathal Burke, I was the one asked to drop the watchtower on him. Nine-hundred dead, and we called ourselves fortunate."

"That experience is part of why you're here, Ulia. Your power has been tested before, and precious few of us can say that," Crafter Kohl said. He pointed behind them, away from the Golem, towards the glow of firelight. "But we're sixty miles away from the City, and the enemy is close. If the City has to worry about one of us losing ourselves to our power, we ought to count ourselves fortunate. It means we won."

Sally looked back at the Gloem in the distance, and despite her power, the euphoric rush of life that came with the Craft, the insignificant little knot of fear that had shaken her earlier remained. "The Crafters who fought before us weren't so fortunate, to worry about what might happen to them after the battle."

"Even the victorious ones," Crafter Kohl agreed. He turned around, to face the Golem, and spread out his arms. "Tuomas, Sally, on my left. Ulia, Verity, Daev'lia, on my right. Space yourselves out, so the Golem can't attack more than one of us at time. And keep your heat haze up, all of you. I'd rather not snuff any of you out by accident."

None of them laughed. But Sally did walk to her post with a certain eagerness, her power rippling thorough her heat haze, causing the air in her wake to crackle and hiss.

She stopped a half-hundred feet away from Crafter Kohl, and watched the Golem march. It took just a singe step every half-minute or so, but each step ate over a hundred feet. "It's painfully slow," Sally said to herself. Despite its immense gait, it's lethargic pace could be outdone by a meandering child.

"We'll be fortunate if it can't move any faster," Crater Kohl said loudly, hearing her despite the distance. Sally grimaced, but was impressed by how keen Garland's senses had become. Often, it was hard to hear, even through the flame, with the noise your own power made.

Crafter Kohl looked past her, to the far end of their formation. "Tuomas, give us the opening move."

Tuomas nodded, without turning his eyes away from the Golem. He raised his right hand straight up into the air, with his fingers spread wide.

The air around the distant Golem turned blue, and bent into a halo of nearly white light. It grew brighter as it thickened, rippling and flickering as it grew brighter. Despite beingsurrounded in her own Craft, Sally could feel the heat emanating from Tuomas' work. The Gloam parted in a wide halo around the Golem, and the wheat beneath burst into flame.

Then, Tuomas clenched his hand into a fist.

Light blotted out the horizon, washed across the fields, and seared the battlements beside Sally. The wind struck her heat haze a few moment later, just as the light faded. The dust and scorched air scarred the edges of her craft, until the ball of air she held was lit up in a haze of orange.

The wind passed like a wave on a levee wall. All across the field, the grass and wheat lay flat, knocked askew or even ripped from the ground by the force of Tuomas' Craft. Through the eyes of her fire, Sally could see the wall she stood on was a shade darker now, blackened just a little by a single, astonishing Craft.

And the Golem, unblemished, took another step.

That tiny fear buried in the back of her thoughts, nearly drowned by the confidence that came from being able to rend reality though a command of her will, returned.

"Sally, you're up," Crafter Kohl said.

Sally pointed her finger at the oncoming mountain of stone, and Crafted. New eyes opened for her, and she looked at the Golem both from miles away, and from so close she could reach out and touch it. Instead, she turned a hand made of exploding air into a fist harder than iron. And with the force of a tower tumbling to the ground, she struck that walking mountain of stone.