Wand: A Fantasy of Witches, Wizards, and Wands
Chapter Thirty

He reacted late, swinging his short sword at a troll shade as it flashed by, but slicing only thin air, inspiring a tiny pop as the sword tip broke the sound barrier.

A second and then a third fruitless slash.

“They don’t even see me,” Nick realized as the entire horde passed him by without so much as cursing his impudence. What if he couldn’t even hurt them here? What if the only use he could be was as a passive observer? Nick shook this ugly thought aside and ran after the horde.

Duchaine’s shade was already at work, hacking at troll shades, severing limbs and stabbing beefy torsos with abandon, sending out sprays of dissipated energy. This wasn’t magic; this was old-school blood for blood.

And Duchaine was painting a masterpiece, splashing the Ghost Zone with magnificent lines of blood spatter, embellishing it with master strokes of severed limbs. His great stang cleaved the air and another shade dropped, its life force ebbing away, becoming one with the macrocosm.

The warlock was soon overwhelmed, however, struggling to slash aside the powerful blows of his opponents’ strange alien weapons. As three trolls engaged him in fierce combat, Nick noticed a pair racing towards the school. They reached the ward Mrs. Willowroot had set up, which looked like a vibrating blue wall—and slammed to a dead stop. For a moment neither troll moved. When they recovered, lying on their backs, they slowly reached forward, searching for the cause of their injuries. They did not appear to see the ward, but that did not keep them from steering clear of it.

Perhaps trolls possessed a sixth sense. Nick made a note to study up on them in Fantastic Beasts.

The warlock blocked a well-placed blow to his head, but the strength of it forced him down to one knee. Now he was blocking parries and thrusts from every side, four, now five trolls savagely attacking. Any other man, and likely any other warlock—besides Michael Delving, perhaps—would’ve already received a death blow.

But Duchaine refused to submit. He hacked at the leg of his nearest attacker, separating the lower half of its leg and dropping it.

On seeing their comrade humbled, three trolls dove in. Duchaine managed to impale one, but the distraction worked; the other two grabbed his beefy arms and pinned them to his sides.

Another troll, the one that had led the charge, raised its weapon and prepared to strike.

Without thinking, Nick launched himself across the intervening thirty or so feet like a rocket, sword first. Quick as thought he was hanging limply from the sword handle. It was stuck to the hilt in the troll shades’ upper back. He found his feet and shoved the dead troll to the dirt, face first. Duchaine and the other trolls gawked down at the fallen mythic, flabbergasted.

Fortunately the warlock recovered quickest; maybe he’d seen something like this before.

He gashed a bloody grin onto the stomach of his nearest opponent. This woke the others from their stupor, and they resumed their attack.

More trolls, the ones from the failed attempt on Mrs. Willowroots’ ward, and a few that had likely been scouting ahead, rallied. Duchaine would’ve been overwhelmed, but a dense black cloud materialized in an explosion, directly between the warlock and the onrushing trolls.

Two people, a man and a woman, both wearing breathers over their faces raced into the thick of the black cloud, athames at the ready. They stabbed and sliced, gouged at eyes and darted away.

Mr. and Mrs. Ussane moved with frightening precision.

And then Oberon Smoot, the alchemy teacher, arrived, whipping copper grenades at the trolls. The parts of the troll body the explosives struck transformed instantly to stone. Troll arms dropped as dead weight, too heavy for muscles to control. Troll legs froze, bringing mythics to the ground where the Ussane’s finished them off.

But there were still a number of trolls trouncing around.

Nick reared back in preparation to charge into the fray, but a sudden shock jolted him. He froze. What was that?—It happened again, more violently, bringing Nick to his knees.

Vision swirled, went momentarily telescopic. For a second he thought he spotted Dean Delacort in his office, stabbing a pixie stick into what looked to be a troll poppet. Then he was reeling again. Nick clawed at the ground as another jolt panged him. What was happening?

“Wake up!” Richard’s voice breeched the Dreaming. Nick was grounding.

Another sudden jolt. Light flashed before his eyes, nausea struck.

With a gasp Nick came back to the physical world, and realized that Richard had been shocking him awake with minute but focused transfers of his bioplasma. “What happened?”

“That!” Richard pointed at the approaching troll, then snatched up a hefty rock and stood to face the mythic.

A few options flitted before Nick’s eyes. He could stand and face the mythic with hammer and chisel; he could run and let Richard try—and fail—to bash the trolls’ head in; he could scream like a girl; or . . . a different sort of option suggested itself to him, and he latched onto it.

He sent out a pulse, a minute portion of his bioplasma as a sort of willful astral projection, in an attempt to summon Pete the school glimmerling, which had been animating a suit of armor.

“Nick, move,” Richard roared.

Nick kicked away from the cave wall and dove for relative safety. Behind him, Richard prayed, “Lord, help me now!” and threw the rock. The most ancient of weapons plunked against the trolls’ shoulder, diverting its aimed slash askew, and saving them both.

The troll rammed into the cave wall. It was a save yourself kind of game now.

The only safe place to flee was the bowels of the cave itself, as Duchaine and the Ussane’s were blocking their escape route with all their tussling. Nick did not fancy leading a troll into the chill dark hole of a cave—and he was saved from fancying it when the glimmerling animating the necromancy suit of armor came clanging down the hill, sword raised.

Nick rolled behind a tree to avoid the downward swipe of his enemies’ blade. The close shave gave Pete a vital few seconds to catch up and engage the troll.

The troll didn’t seem surprised by the armored opponent, but instantly responded with a savage display of prowess, hacking and swinging and launching itself at Pete. For a few seconds it looked as though Pete had the upper hand, but then the troll executed a vicious stroke and Pete’s left gauntlet clattered to the ground. The troll raised its blade.

Nick screeched, “Stop!”

The troll hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Pete tore it open, stem to stern.

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