Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,74

next to the gate. Will’s boot was still firmly in its hand.

Meanwhile, Tiny’s opponent had slid down the spear to reach the big warrior. Tiny had stopped it with one hand, and since his arm was longer, the thing couldn’t reach his throat. A moment later he was forced to use both hands to hold the thing at bay, releasing the spear. The vampire had taken hold of the squire’s arms and was now prying them away from its throat. Will saw a strange look cross Tiny’s face as the vampire’s greater strength slowly pulled his arms apart, forcing his hands to release the thing’s throat.

Tiny outweighed the thing by a factor of two or three, and still it was overpowering him. The smaller vampire, a girl near the age of twelve by the look of her, abandoned Will to throw herself at the giant warrior. With both his arms otherwise engaged, Tiny would be nearly helpless to stop her from ripping his face off if she so desired.

Will’s second force-lance ripped through her back and accelerated her motion, flinging the diminutive vampire over the wall and into the street. Getting to his feet, Will moved to help his friend. He could see the vampire with his boot was already beginning to stand again. What do I have to do to keep them down? he thought desperately, though he already knew the answer—fire.

If only he had some.

Hobbling over with one bare foot, Will gave the vampire struggling with Tiny a wide berth. The air was filled with coarse grunts as the big man tried desperately to keep his arms from spreading. Will moved behind him and got close, pressing himself almost against Tiny’s back as the first vampire threw the boot away and sprang at them. If the ruinous hole through its body bothered it, it certainly wasn’t enough to slow the thing down.

Will released his last spell, the wind-wall. His turyn was still close to his maximum, more than enough to fully empower the spell. A fierce roar filled their ears as the air around them tore the world to tatters. The vampire that Tiny held was partly in and partly out of the minimum radius, but it was torn free in less than a second, becoming just another piece of detritus in the terrible cyclone that surrounded them.

The spell lasted several seconds, and when it died away they could see the devastation it had wrought. The lawn around the walkway was gone, torn up out to a distance of fifteen feet. Parts of the walkway had also vanished, fragments of it lying haphazardly in the surrounding area. The torn gate and part of the wall had collapsed, and scattered among all the debris and broken masonry were body parts, the remains of two of the vampires. Will could see the arms and legs twitching and moving helplessly as they tried to find each other to reunite. Can they really survive something like that? Would they heal if we gave them enough time?

The smaller vampire had been too far away to be affected.

“What the hell was that?” exclaimed Tiny as the roaring winds died down.

“Magic,” snapped Will. “Let’s see where the other one went. Stay close.” He headed for the ruined gate. As soon as he stepped out into the street, he could see that he and Tiny hadn’t been the only ones engaged in a desperate fight. The entire front lawn of the Nerrow house was ablaze, and several burning corpses littered the yard. Will was forced to readjust his vision to accommodate the change in lighting, but he’d gotten so used to doing so that the process was nearly automatic.

Mark Nerrow stood on the front steps of his home, two fire elementals beside him on either side. Darla was behind him, her head turned upward as her eyes scanned the roof of the house above them. She must have played the decoy like Tiny did for me, Will realized. Looks like she did a better job of it, though.

The childlike vampire stood by the gate to the Nerrow house, her body out of view, hidden from the baron by the stone pillar that flanked the gate. As Will looked on, she lifted her chin and uttered a shrill, high-pitched cry. It