She Who Has No Name (The Legacy Trilogy) Read Online Free Page A

first, sending out in an explosion of force and power that blew the Gartens on the left from their feet and shattered their bones within their limbs.  The men on Samuel’s right became engulfed in flames and flailed around in the mud as Goodfellow sent out a jet of magic which turned to billowing fire amongst them.  Samuel followed suit, focussing his attention on the Gartens straight ahead of them, and he set his gathered magic to work.  With the barest of thoughts, raw power exploded from within him and tore a mass of men into little more than chunks of flesh and a spray of scarlet mist.  His magic contorted atop the battlefield, churning up furrows of earth and tossing bodies in all directions.  Such was the ferocity of the ring, that he barely had need to form any particular spell.  The sheer intensity of the magic itself was enough to kill.
    ‘Samuel!’ Eric called beside him, recoiling at the carnage.  ‘Calm yourself!  This is just the beginning.’
    He was trying his best to limit the flow of power , but it took all his effort to keep the torrent from breaking its banks and overcoming him.  If that happened, and all the power of the ring tore through him at once, it would almost certainly be the end for him.  The Argum Stone was a difficult beast to master.
    The rest of the Garten army had now sprung into motion and they came leaping over the bodies of their fallen, surrounding upon the magicians in a semi-circle.  Despite the number of dead already, barely a fraction of their total had been diminished so far.
    Again the magicians lashed out with streams of power that cut chunks from the Garten ranks, but more men filled their places and more men still clambered over the broken corpses of their comrades to get at the Empire’s magicians.  Explosions began to pock the dark masses of furred men as Eric began desperately slinging knots of furious magic into them.  Goodfellow was now spraying the Gartens with sparks that leapt between them and burrowed through their flesh, burning and scalding the invaders so that they screamed and impeded their fellows with their fitting. 
    Samuel continued to assail the N orth-men with short , measured bursts of power from the ring, felling twenty men with each carefully aimed release.  Each time he reached for its magic , he felt as if he was thrusting his arms into boiling water, for it seemed the more he used its power , the more it punished him.  Such pain was too much to endure for very long and he looked at the endless tide of warriors before him with dread.  He considered opening himself entirely and unleashing a single , unbridled burst of the Argum Stone’s fury, but the consequences were entirely unpredictable.  He longed to have the battle finished, but he pushed the thought away and kept on at his task with stubborn perseverance.
    ‘I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a spot of trouble,’ Goodfellow stated, calling out above the throng.  He was already dripping with sweat and wiping it from his eyes with his mud-splattered sleeves at every opportunity.
    ‘Keep going as long as you can,’ Eric responded, ‘but save your last reserves so we can make our escape.  I don’t think we’re going to make much of a dent in their numbers.  It looks like their whole army has arrived.’
    Goodfellow swallowed nervously, for the Garten host had already enfolded them and , whilst the nearest of men were attacking them, the vast majority of the Gartens were simply running by and ignoring them, set on taking the town.
    ‘We have to stop them!’ Eric called out.
    ‘We’ve bloody well got our hands full as it is!’ Goodfellow called back.
    Samuel would have joined the dialogue, but his jaw was locked shut with pain.  He could smell an acrid vapour as the hair on his arms began to smoulder, but he put it from his mind and let loose another scathing beam of power that cut a row of N orth-men in two at the waists.  He had not expected the spell to be so