Chapter 5 Part 15

Ultrecht watched his attacker settle to the ground. His counter attack had been calculated and precise. He had been attacked twice. First with lightning, then with fire. Generally if a creature is susceptible to any kind of elemental attack, it is the complimentary, or opposite element to the one they use in their attacks. So Ultrecht had attacked with cold. Apparently the other magic user was not overly vulnerable to cold, because he had managed to cushion his fall, but his mount was done for.

Actually the spell he had used was the Vortex of Frost, a spell Armegon had created several years ago. It packed considerably more of a punch than the basic cold attacks.

The other magic user landed and stood facing Ultrecht. The light breeze swept his hooded cloak out behind him revealing his fine yet subdued clothing. Ultrecht held a small pinch of sulfur in his left hand, and his talisman of the eight elements in his right. He had not summoned elemental magic since he had sealed Seymore away in that pocket of time back in the mine.

Suddenly without warning, his enemy gestured with his hand and without a word a beam of emerald light shot forth. As if guided by some unseen force, Ultrecht's own forearm came up and intercepted the deadly beam with the magical bracer he wore there. The beam ricocheted off to one side where it struck a clump of scrub brush. There was a flash and the plants ceased to exist.

A disintegration beam, thought Ultrecht in surprise. That was a spell which required material components as well as vocal and somatic gestures. Ultrecht knew how to get around the verbal component, and the gesture had been the semantic one, but some how this mage had manipulated the element of time without a the benefit of a material component.

Ultrecht wasted no more time pondering that feat. He quickly summoned up magical energy and channeled it into his talisman. He whispered the magical phrases to invoke the element of fire and released the result at his assailant.

The tiny bead of light shot across the grassland and erupted on target like a miniature star. The light was so bright that Ultrecht was momentarily blinded.