his iron-reinforced skin.
Bending down, he retrieved the still-blazing falchion and then straightened to stare upward at the sorcerer, who was watching him with an expression of muted horror. His ribs screamed painfully as he did, but the only outward sign he gave was furious snarl of rage.
The elemental wouldn’t be able to function for some time. Although elementals were physically immune to most things and essentially unkillable, they recovered turyn in the same manner that most modern wizards did: slowly. The exception to that rule was a greater elemental created from a wizard of Arrogan’s time, since they could absorb turyn in the same way Will could. Such elementals were rare, though, and Will doubted this was one of them.
Will was still holding a painful amount of turyn, and so he released it by sending a series of force-lances at the cliff’s edge beneath where the sorcerer stood. The range was excessive, which mean the spells cost him a large amount of turyn. It also served to force his enemy to retreat in fear.
With his excess turyn spent, he held out his hand and began constructing an elemental earth-and-air travel-disk spell. The sorcerer wasn’t dead, and the elemental would recover. He intended to bring the fight to a final conclusion. It took him most of a minute, and then the stone disk came together beneath his feet, lifting him into the air. Directing the air that supported it, he pushed away from the ground and began ascending.
The travel-disk wasn’t meant for flying. It normally hovered above the ground and could sometimes be pushed to fifteen or twenty feet to clear obstacles, but it needed the earth to push against. Will wasn’t in the mood to climb the cliff in the usual fashion. Every second meant their enemy was getting farther away. He followed a lateral path beside the cliff for twenty yards or so, until he reached a point where the top edge was lower, perhaps just thirty yards above him, then he rammed the excess turyn he still held into the air flow beneath him. The stone disk shot up beneath his feet as a similar force seemed to push him down against it.
His eyes tracked the cliff edge as it neared, and his upward velocity gradually slowed. He was still pushing more energy into the spell, trying to increase his lift, but he was too far from the ground to gain much for his effort. It was going to be close, and if he missed, the result would probably be painful.
I’m not going to make it. The disk reached its apogee just a foot from the cliff edge, so Will stepped off with a jaunty hop that made him want to howl as his ribs ground together from the sudden movement. From the outside, it probably looked impressively graceful, but inwardly he was swearing. He was also disappointed to have lost the disk, since it would have made catching up to the sorcerer much easier. Will released the spell as it fell back toward the base of the cliff and then started to scan for his enemy.
A flash of searing pain in his left arm and shoulder alerted him to the direction he should be looking, as a fire-bolt spattered across his iron-reinforced skin. The spell might have killed him, but the iron-body spell had kept it from penetrating. Instead, he was left with the prospect of a third-degree burn across his shoulder and upper arm. Mentally, he filed it under things to worry about later.
His eyes focused on a tall, slender man with long black hair and a thin moustache. The sorcerer was well attired in an expensive coat and rich brown riding boots. His hair had pretty waves and appeared to have been oiled. The man hastily constructed another fire-bolt and launched it in Will’s direction.
Will stomped toward the man, idly deflecting the fire-bolt with a point-defense shield as he noted the fact that the fellow had had to construct the spell in the normal time-consuming fashion. As expected, he’s not much of a spell caster. He pointed the blazing sword at the stranger as he strode closer, steadily shortening the thirty yards that still remained between them. “You’re about to have a very bad day,” he pronounced ominously. “The worst day ever, in fact, but fortunately for you, it’s also your last.”
The sorcerer took a step back, then seemed to consider his options. He stopped and began constructing a new spell, one Will recognized—a force-dome.