Perhaps they would have more information before they got attacked again.
“We came to help,” Katsi said to the young woman, a girl who couldn’t have been more than a couple years older than Katsi. Her red-brown hair was tied back in a thick braid.
“I saw what you did,” the girl said. “What is happening?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to provide more context,” Katsi said.
Migo stood on alert, eyes glaring in the direction of the nearest group. The girl didn’t seem nearly as afraid of him as she should.
“All I know is that day and night returned, then in the morning, the city was under attack by the shamans,” the girl said. “You’re a shaman, but you’re not with them?”
“No,” Katsi said. “It’s a really long story, honestly, but what you need to know is that we’re here to help, and everyone in the city either needs to survive or get far away. These other shamanfolk, they’re part of the Reyganin Tribe. They’ll enslave anybody they don’t kill.”
The girl nodded and went to pick up a discarded spear. She handed it to the wounded soldier. “How do we survive?” she asked.
Katsi let out a sigh as she glanced at Migo. With another energy pulse, she could sense the two groups were very close now. “Find cover, but on open ground. Steer clear of the lightning.”
The girl nodded and led the wounded soldier and the other woman further behind.
Migo took a few steps towards the nearest group of enemies and let out a steaming breath.
“Did you blow fire out of your mouth earlier, Migo?” she ventured to ask.
Migo looked at her out of one eye and tilted his head as a response.
“Alright, we need a better plan. I’ll aim for the waheshi if you aim for the shamans. I don’t think the shamans are able to do anything to you, but those waheshi gave you a bit of a lashing.” She didn’t fail to notice the gash along Migo’s hide.
Migo nodded to her, wings twitching. A growl came from his throat that she thought sounded like the word, “Safe.”
“I’ll try,” she said, touching her chest. She looked back down at her fingers, noting that they’d come away with a bit of blood on them. Not a lot, but certainly more than she would have liked. And she wasn’t even going to acknowledge the burning pain on her arms.
Migo’s growl deepened as he eyed the blood on her fingers.
Katsi wiped it on the dirt at her feet. “I’ll keep a shield up this time. Don’t worry,” she said, jumping off the ground, rising slowly higher. True to her word, she summoned a sphere of air around herself and called up a hot tailwind, ready to blow down their entire force when they arrived. It seemed odd to have the sun so high overhead. She expected to be burning to a crisp, but it was no warmer than the Ring would normally have been. There were fewer shadows than she’d ever seen, and everything felt a little too bright. Or perhaps calling all that lightning had made her eyes sensitive.
There had to be a solution for that issue with the flashing. She’d have to ask Jafir when she got back if there was some kind of enchantment that would allow her to see. Then she wouldn’t be caught unaware by a stray boulder.
The first of the approaching Reyganins came into sight. They came slowly, watching Katsi as they walked. Perhaps they wanted the other group to catch up to them so they could attack together, but she wouldn’t give them the chance. Migo seemed to have the same thought, though he remained on the ground, he began walking towards them, head low like a hunting rangola.
Katsi was more bold than that. She let out a long breath as though it were the wind itself. A gust exploded in their direction. That wouldn’t be enough. At the same time, she connected with the stony street beneath them, spikes of stone bursting up from the ground. Chaos ensued as they ducked and scattered, trying to evade or push away the powerful gale and deadly ground.
All this was merely a distraction. The real threat was coming from above as Katsi channeled energy from the darkening sky. She’d avoid using her body as the conduit this time since the delicacy was no longer required. But there was something missing. In fact, she couldn’t see the waheshi anywhere.
She maintained the connection while Migo charged in from below, heading straight for the shamans. She sent out a pulse, trying to detect that nothingness that indicated a waheshi’s location, but the only thing she could sense was underground.
Wait.
“Migo!” she yelled, considering the possibility that he was too far to hear.
Migo hesitated, his hearing more keen than she’d thought, but he stopped directly over the depth of nothingness.
She reached out to connect with the ground but found it blocked off, and she was barely able to connect with any of it before it erupted, opening a large chasm beneath.
Migo’s wings shot out, preventing him from falling in, but a swarm of waheshi crawled out all around him, claws and teeth grasping, latching onto him. He roared, wings pumping but failing to drag him into the sky as nearly a dozen waheshi managed to grab him. That red fire exploded from his mouth, engulfing the nearest waheshi, fire turning to a shade of whitish blue as soon as it touched flesh.
They’d kill Migo if she didn’t do anything. But there was only one thing she could really do to waheshi.
Migo roared with pain as more claws and teeth stabbed into him, dragging him down.
Katsi held nothing back. She extended her fingers, connecting the energy from the clouds down to the hole where the waheshi were uncovered. It pounded down in a steady stream, coalescing around the whole area. For a moment, no sound existed, but the air itself trembled. Katsi couldn’t look away. The lightning she’d called burned across her vision in streaks of flaming red.
Buildings, shamans, waheshi. Everything was consumed in the energy that poured from her. She tried her best to keep it from the nothingness that signified Migo’s location, but it was far beyond her control. She kept pushing into it until the forces around him fizzled.
She gasped, heat scorching her flesh until she released the connection. Despite the release, tendrils of red, electrical pulses crawled across the ground with a life of their own. Black smoke coiled up from the scorched ground.
“Migo?” Katsi said, body trembling as she lowered herself, keeping enough distance from the ground to avoid the energy that still sparked around. Her heart pounded. Had she hurt him? How could anything have survived all that power? “Migo?” she called again, louder this time. She heard nothing, and the smoke obscured her vision.
Katsi called up the wind, blowing it across the crater that remained to clear the smoke.
A deep growl shook the ground as a black monster emerged from the hole, the red lightning trickling across its body, bouncing between the spikes that protruded along its spine.
Migo.
But once he clawed his way back to the surface, he dropped to his stomach with a low grunt. Perhaps she’d done too much. She made the mistake of looking at her arms. Her skin was red and raw. Even her fingers had been burned. Getting those rings off would be torture, and even now, they still burned hot on her flesh.
She gasped through the pain. “Migo, are you well?”
Migo rolled a tired eye at her and let out a huffing sound that may as well have been, “No.”
