Plague of Spells

The caravan chief lent Raidon a spirited horse to ride rear guard. She told Raidon its name was Ta

The monk was stroking Ta

The thudding beat of hundreds of wings against the still air pulled his gaze upward. A great flock of crows, their black silhouettes skating swiftly across the morning sky, flew out of the east. The flock didn't veer or hesitate. It swiftly overtook the caravan then passed it, flying arrow-straight into the west. Raidon squinted into the distance, looking for a pursuer-perhaps a griffon or a small dragon? No. Only the rising sun. A sun as blue as the eye of a storm giant and as devoid of heat as an advancing glacier.

Blue? What-

A cacophony of shrill calls and screams broke from a copse of sheltering trees to the south. A mob of stunted figures in patchwork armor dashed forth. Some brandished spears, others axes. Goblin bandits! Raidon estimated twenty at least. The one leading the charge dwarfed the rest and was shaggier.

Caravan guards tumbled out of the wagons, buckling on scabbards and fumbling cords to unstrung bows.

Raidon sawed on the reins, turning Ta

Raidon hijacked a portion of Ta

In less time than it took to make a single revolution, an awful, meaty snap rang out. The half-elf loosed his hold and concluded his roll, allowing the maneuver to bleed away his speed in just three revolutions. Back on his feet with hands ready, he saw the shaggy bandit leader on its back, one leg splayed to the side at an obscene angle. It continued to scream, but no longer in challenge.

The remaining goblins, composed entirely of the smaller, greenish breed, stumbled to a halt. They looked down at their chieftain, then back to Raidon. The monk stared them down, knowing he could intimidate the goblin rabble with a confident stance. The goblins' greenish skin seemed to shift, flickering and brightening under his scrutiny, until it was blue. Not only their skin, but their equipment, the ground they stood upon, and everything else.

Was he hallucinating?

Uncertainty turned to alarm among the goblins. They pointed and spoke excitedly in their debased tongue. Raidon cocked his head. He couldn't understand their language or why their frightened pointing wasn't at him.

Raidon shifted his stance so he faced the sunrise.

The oddly chill sun was gone. Instead, the horizon was on fire.

Blue fire.

From beyond the horizon's rim, a pillar of azure fire with a fat crown tumbled toward the sky as if intent on piercing heaven's vault itself. The ravening pillar's crown was molten sapphire, and unleashed a fiery catastrophe in its wake.

Raidon gaped with all the rest, his focus lost in the apocalyptic image.

Was it some sort of demonic assault? Or had the monstrosities he hunted-the mind flayers, the aboleths, the beholders, the skinstealers, and all the other deformed and formless hordes-finally combined their efforts to find and ambush him? He fumbled for his amulet, his hands trembling with uncharacteristic haste.

No. It was just as when he'd checked it yesterday. The amulet remained warm to the touch, its image unblemished. Its serenity indicated aberrations were not responsible for the catastrophic skyline. That knowledge offered no comfort in the face of what was the most incredible display of destruction Raidon had ever witnessed.

Raidon let the amulet drop back against his chest, a groan on his lips as he looked to the south. A second fiery pillar clawed up over the jagged edges of the Orsraun Mountains, small in the vast distance. Whatever was happening, more than just the Dragon Coast was caught up in it.

Ta

A shimmering wall of disrupted air raced over the lip of the horizon and down across the plain toward them. Within that wall, blue flames licked and cavorted. The wall stretched north and south as far as Raidon could see, and reached up too, miles beyond his comprehension.

Wild creatures tried to outrun the advancing wall of fire; bounding jackrabbits, sprinting deer, and a lone wolf stretching its stride in a desperate bid for escape. None could outrace death. The oncoming wall washed over them, burning each to ash.

Bandits and caravaneers alike cried out in a single voice as panic grew. Scrambling, pawing, screaming, they turned west, already ru

Raidon felt himself reverberate with the mob's panic, but he held himself back, mentally searching for his vaunted focus. If his end was imminent, he didn't want to perish in a moment of failed self-control. He spurred Ta

The horse ran. She strained forward, shivering with her effort. She easily overtook the goblins and men fleeing afoot. Next she pulled past the other mounted caravan outriders.

A moment later, the oncoming front enveloped them.

A shrieking gust of air punched Raidon from Ta

The bare earth began to steam. The haze hindered Raidon's ability to judge his roll. He fell, out of control. Something hard cracked his left elbow. The snap vibrated through him, and his left arm went as loose as a rag doll's. His training temporarily shielded him from pain, though he already felt signals he couldn't long ignore gathering at the edge of his mind. His roll concluded in a flopping, painful heap. He came to rest in the lee of a larger boulder. The outcrop shielded him from the tornado-like wind.

He blinked into the torrent, trying desperately to comprehend what was occurring all around him. Raidon wondered if he wasn't within the belly of chaos itself. The wind's screech was so loud he was partly deafened. Blood trickled from one of his ears.

A woman lay just beyond the ravine that ran along the road. Raidon recognized her after a moment: the caravan chief. The roadside ravine, like his boulder, offered partial protection from the roaring wind. The woman struggled to rise from where the shock front had tossed her. Blood soaked one side of her face. She saw Raidon behind his boulder and reached.

Then she caught fire and screamed. Blue flame wreathed her in an instant. The eldritch flame burned brightest in her eyes and open mouth. Raidon cried out in sympathy and in fear, but he couldn't hear himself. A nimbus of cobalt flame sprouted from the woman's back as if she unfurled fiery wings, but before Raidon quite understood what he saw, the woman burned away to ash.