Preparation! Dammit, Harry. The key to survival as a wizard is preparation!
I could hear sledgehammer blows being delivered to my ice wall, and though I couldn’t see it in the fog, I could hear the change of pitch in each impact, as the ice began to crack and shatter.
“Oh God!” Harvey shouted in a panic. I couldn’t see him either, and I’d forgotten about him for a second. He was probably right where I’d left him, within a few feet of the wall, and able to see exactly what was happening.
The other two ghouls were coming through.
Something inside me started screaming along with poor Harvey.
It was time for a desperate risk.
I abruptly shifted direction and charged the warrior ghoul.
My staff flickered at my head. I raised my left arm to block, trying to take the blow on the meaty muscle of my forearm. Though I didn’t feel any pain, the impact sent a flash of white light across my vision. My duster’s sleeve caught some of the blow, but not much. Its defensive spells were really meant to slow and disperse fast-moving objects like bullets, or to stop the penetration of sharp things. A big blunt instrument had no subtlety, but it was merry hell to defend against.
I found myself inside the quarterstaff’s reach, and promptly slammed my head against the end of the ghoul’s muzzle. He let out a yowl of surprise and anger, his forward momentum abruptly stalled, and I followed up with a one-armed push using every bit of muscle the Winter mantle could muster.
The ghoul staggered back several steps and then his feet went out from under him!
Hope sparked and kindled will. As the ghoul fell, I let out a triumphant howl of “Infriga!”
Winter howled into the little store for the fifth time in maybe sixty seconds, blanketing the fallen ghoul warrior in absolute cold and boiling fog. I panted frantically for a couple of seconds, until the fog boiled away enough to let me see the warrior ghoul in its frozen sarcophagus.
“Harvey!” I croaked. “Harvey, sound off!”
“Oh God!” Harvey sobbed. “Oh God!”
“Yeah, or that,” I muttered, and hurried toward the sound.
I reached him just as the other two ghouls pounded their way through the wall. Harvey let out a shockingly high-pitched squealing sound and scrambled in helpless panic on the slippery ice.
I raised my frost-coated right hand, gathered my will for another spell—
—and found a patch of white blankness in front of my eyes. I blinked and suddenly I was sitting on the ice next to Harvey, wondering how I’d gotten down there.
Winter, I realized. I called up too much power, too fast, with too little chance to rest. I’d burned up my reserves of magical energy, to the point where it threatened to rob me of consciousness. But even now, I didn’t feel magically exhausted.
Of course you don’t feel it, dummy. You’re the Winter Knight.
I blinked a couple of times, and then looked down at my left arm, which was sending me some sort of odd, pulsing sensation.
My duster’s sleeve was being distended from the inside by something pointy. It took me an effort of conscious observation and logical processing to realize that it was my own broken arm.
A seven-foot section of the ice wall suddenly shattered and fell to the floor with a groan.
I shoved myself to my feet with my good arm as the other two warrior ghouls came through the opening.
No magic.
No weapons.
No options.
I set my teeth in a defiant, futile snarl and the ghouls pounced.