He toppled sideways, only for his attacker to jump into the fray with his fists swinging.
“Ye can’t punch a spell,” Lyle yelled, “but ye can punch a wizard! Who’s with me?”
For a moment, Justin thought the people around him might join the fight. If the dwarf had continued to win, he was sure they would have. They had feared the wizard for a very long time and he had killed God only knew how many of their friends and family. With Lyle inflicting real damage, they were ready for revenge.
Unfortunately, Sephith was as powerful a wizard as the stories claimed. An explosion ripped through the town square like a thunderclap and the dwarf catapulted away. He struck the side of the tavern with a deep thud and slid down to lie still.
“Lyle!” Justin yelled. Fury filled him and he pushed to his feet to attack.
“Look out!” a female voice yelled, and Anna tackled him sideways.
“Let me up!” He shoved her away. “God, you can’t let anyone else—”
Then he saw what she’d pushed him away from. Sephith floated once more and the air around him was wreathed in green and black flames that were so hot, they melted the cobblestones. The heat wasn’t as bad as it should be only a few feet away, but he still winced and the people cowered with cries of pain and fear.
“You have one day,” the wizard boomed. “Be grateful I only ask for three lives in recompense for this rebellion. True justice would be far harder on all of you. If you do not send three sacrifices to my tower within a day, I shall take one from every family in the village.”
He disappeared with a thunderclap, and the flames vanished with him. Justin edged forward slightly, saw that the cobblestones truly were melted, and wanted to throw up. He had almost been in the path of those flames. Without a doubt, he had very nearly been melted the same way the stone had.
Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t even have melted and would simply have gone up in flames. His skin prickled.
The villagers were crying. Young children buried their faces in their parents’ shoulders while townspeople argued between themselves, hissing names and accusations at one another. Anna walked quietly to where the remains of her dagger had cooled and become an inextricable part of the cobbles. Only the hilt of the weapon was recognizable.
Justin stared at the tower in the distance. His hatred was so intense that he forgot anything else for a while. Then, reality clicked in.
“Lyle!” With a curse, he ran to find his friend.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Interesting,” DuBois said. “Very interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Mary was sure she would lose her mind. She couldn’t read the little lines of code that continually appeared on the screen, and the doctor kept forgetting to interpret them. Sometimes, she thought he was not telling her on purpose so that she wouldn’t get worried about Justin, but that only made her paranoid when he genuinely forgot to translate.
“He survived his first encounter with the wizard,” he said and stretched a little to pat her hand. “That’s good.”
“His…first encounter? He didn’t beat the wizard?” She was fairly sure the character was supposed to be dead at the end of this, although that seemed bloodthirsty on her part.
“No,” DuBois said. “I didn’t expect that he would. What’s interesting is that he and the two group °members are functioning as a team. They don’t like each other but it is going fairly well.” He swallowed more popcorn before he continued. “Also, he’s beginning to get more deeply invested in the game world. I don’t see any of his joke dialogue.” He saw her confusion. “He used to say things that showed he knew it was a game but he hasn’t said those as much.”
“That’s good, right?”
“That’s very good,” he assured her. “In fact—uh-oh.”
***-
Lyle lay inert outside the tavern. Justin shoved villagers out of his way as he ran to his side and lowered his head to listen for breath. He couldn’t see his teammate’s sides moving.
Then, with a groan, the dwarf rolled onto his back and uttered a snore. Justin jerked back. His heart pounded with relief but the snore sounded like a water buffalo breathing through oatmeal. He had begun to wonder how he had managed to get a single moment of sleep since getting there.
“Lyle?” He shook the dwarf’s shoulder and craned to check if there was any blood in his hair. He didn’t see any. Maybe dwarves were