Chapter 14
“Vanessa, Quinn!” I shouted as I turned to look at both women. “They have a catapult to break down the barrier, so be ready to move!”
“I’m going to hold this for as long as I can,” Quinn said as she lifted her chin defiantly.
“No!” I ordered. “You’ll do as I say, unless you want to get yourself killed!”
I stormed over to the headmistress, and I saw the focused look on her face. She never took her eyes off the barrier, but her expression softened the longer I stared at her.
“Okay, my lord, I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’ll drop my wand as soon as you tell me to do so.”
“Good,” I said firmly, and then I turned on my heels to face the warlocks once again.
The group was much closer now, and more of the men were seen standing behind the initial bunch. Then, as I looked past the various heads, I noticed the catapult Alexander had mentioned.
The wooden frame wobbled as it was wheeled closer to the barrier, and I watched as one rebel pulled back the arm and held it in place. A second man held out his hands, and then a large, burning ball of fire erupted in his palms. The man placed the ball in the bucket of the catapult, and a group of warlocks then positioned the wooden device to wherever they needed it to go.
“Get back!” I commanded as I began to run backward. “Everyone, drop your positions and get inside!”
I reached the main doors seconds before the fireball was hurled through the air. It smacked against the watery dome, but instead of falling to the ground, the ball sat there and slowly began to erode the barrier. The warlocks loaded the basket with a second fireball and continued the process until a large gap was spotted in the dome. The rebel who created the fireballs simply summoned them from thin air, so I knew their provisions weren’t going to run out soon, and as soon as the barrier broke, they were going to aim the fireballs at the school instead.
I needed to destroy that catapult first and foremost and then stop them from creating more. But I wondered how difficult that was going to be when we had a horde of angry warlocks roaming the school grounds.
“Vanessa,” I said as I slammed the main doors behind me. “Come with me.”
I led the professor into the classroom where I’d left Winnie, and I noticed the little witch had her face pressed up against the window. Then, as I closed the door, Winnie let out a squeak and jumped back in fright.
“You scared me,” she said as she caught her breath.
“Be sure to pay closer attention.” Vanessa gave Winnie a stern look. “We could have been an enemy for all you knew.”
“Okay, okay,” I said with my hands up. “I need you both to work together. I need to destroy that catapult, but I can’t do that without someone watching my back.”
“How are you going to destroy it with all those men around?” Winnie asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.” I shrugged. “However, they’ll instantly aim at me when I go to destroy it. I’ll be a distraction, so it gives you the opportunity to target them.”
“Are you thinking of doing it from far away, or close up?” Vanessa asked.
I thought through her question for a second and weighed my various options. Either way, regardless of where I stood, there was a chance the warlocks could deflect my shot, so I needed to be sure I picked the option that had the higher success rate.
Then an idea came to mind, and a smirk curled across my lips as the plan grew larger.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said as I turned for the door. “Come with me.”
Then myself, Vanessa, and Winnie ran through the school and up the various flights of stairs until we reached the top floor of the building. I took a moment to look from the window, and I noticed the warlocks were still trying to get through the barrier, but the fireballs had given them an advantage.
I knew Lilith and Theodora were on the top floor somewhere, but I cleared my mind as I tried to locate my mother’s presence. It felt like a magnetic pull directed me toward their whereabouts, and I followed the invisible trail until it led me to an empty room at the very top of the building. The room didn’t have much of a purpose, and I hadn’t felt the need to enter it before now, but it gave Theodora and Lilith the perfect viewpoint. There was one small, oval window built into one wall, and a tiny wooden door which led out onto a stone, balcony-like area.
“My son,” Lilith said as we barged inside. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “The catapult they’re using isn’t going to run out of supplies anytime soon, so I need to destroy it, and this room could be the perfect place.”
“What are you thinking, master?” Theodora asked as she placed one hand on my shoulder.
“I will lift the catapult into the air, while you and Lilith kill all the warlocks who try to stop me,” I explained. “Vanessa and Winnie, you two will destroy the catapult.”
“Me?” Winnie asked, and the color in her cheeks paled slightly. “I haven’t worked on anything that big before.”
“What about the window you just shattered?” I reminded her. “The strength you used to shatter and repair the glass is nothing compared to breaking up bits of wood.”
“What spell should I use?” Winnie looked at everyone in the room. “I… I… no, this is too much.”
“You’re thinking about it too much and stressing yourself out, girl,” Theodora said compassionately. “If you managed to break the glass and repair it again, then all you need to do is use the same spell, but cut it off once the catapult has shattered. It’s only when you continue the spell that the item repairs itself.”
“Okay, okay,” Winnie said as she tried to hype herself up again. “I can do this. I can totally do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Lilith replied with an encouraging smile.
I left the women to talk as I walked out onto the balcony and crouched down to the floor. The slits in the wall gave me the chance to look out across the land, and I managed to see further down the long line of enemies. I also managed to get a better view of the creatures they’d brought with them. There was a large number of tiny, imp-like beasts with chains tied around their necks to keep them in place, plus some creatures about twice the size of a dog. I was still too far away to see exactly what they were, but I noticed ruby-red eyes and white teeth.
The warlocks were clearly waiting to give the creatures an order, so I had no idea whether they were going to release them all at once, or if the creatures were the final challenge, and we had to cross the others hurdles first before we came face to face with the hungry monsters.
“Are you ready?” Lilith asked as she kneeled down beside me.
“I’m always ready,” I scoffed. “These fuckers don’t know who they’re playing with, but I’m about to show them.”
An almighty boom echoed through the sky as the barrier finally broke, and the warlocks began to charge.
“Let’s go!” I said urgently to the women in the room.
As expected, some of the warlocks ran straight for the school building, but I kept my eyes firmly focused on the catapult as one rebel loaded the basket once again.
“Volant!” I shouted.
A bolt of light left my wand, and it flew straight through the air until it reached the catapult. My perfect aim caused the fireball to fly from the basket and attach itself to the closest warlock. His manic screams were muffled by the distance between us, and I held back a laugh as I watched him bat at the flames with his bare hands.
Then he went to produce another fireball, but a motion from my left caught my attention. Lilith held out her hand in the man’s direction, and I spotted the excited glint in her blue eyes.
“Mortuus cadunt,” Lilith whispered into her wand.
Almost immediately, a green light vibrated around the man’s body, and he collapsed onto the grassy ground as the light slowly dwindled.
Lilith had used the killing spell like it was nothing, and neither of us said a word as my mother aimed for a second rebel and repeated the curse all over again.
“Get the catapult,” she said in between kills. “It’s going to anger the warlocks, so we’ll need to act quickly.”
“Don’t worry.” I smirked. “They’ll all be dead before it affects them too much.”
I peered over the lip of the balcony as I took in the ominous sight of the warlocks, and I couldn’t wait to watch each and every one of them die a painful death. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but the eagerness to kill only made it more exciting.
The battle had truly begun, and now it was time to show these non-believers that the Dark Lord had returned.
I lined up my wand with the catapult and stared down the length of my wand as I whispered the spell.
“Dolorum fuga,” I said.
I lifted my hand into the air, and the catapult lurched off the ground and followed my every movement. I noticed the shocked expressions on the warlocks’ faces as the large, wooden contraption floated above their heads, and I watched as the men tried to locate the witch who’d made the catapult fly.
“Go!” I ordered as I kept my eyes focused on the catapult. “Destroy it!”
Vanessa and Winnie muttered various spells, and bolts of light attacked the catapult from both angles, but nothing appeared to work. The lights simply fizzled out before they could do anything.
Either the warlocks had added their own charm to the catapult, or the spells Vanessa and Winnie used weren’t strong enough. I couldn’t do anything with my own wand until I’d put the machinery on the ground again… but maybe I didn’t have to.
Maybe dropping it from the height would be enough to break it.
“Cover me,” I said as I stood up. “I can’t handle any more distractions right now.”
Just as I’d expected, the warlocks began to shoot at me the second I rose from behind the balcony walls, but as I raised my hands higher into the air, I heard the shouts and commands as Vanessa, Winnie, Theodora, and Lilith attempted to kill as many warlocks as they could.
Then, once I’d lifted the catapult as high as possible, I dropped the spell, and the wooden device fell through the air and crashed into a group of warlocks and rebels. One side of the catapult broke off, but it was still in working order, so I knew I had to keep going until it was completely demolished.
But as I lifted the catapult into the air to drop it again, I sensed a powerful force grab a hold of the catapult, and it was almost like someone was trying to control the machine from the opposite side.
The warlocks were trying to take control, but I wasn’t going to give them that privilege.
“They’re trying to take the catapult from me,” I growled as I used all my strength to keep the machine still in the air. “You need to destroy it as quickly as you can.”
The women around me screamed out every spell and incantation they could think of, and I felt the power slowly decrease, but the warlocks still had as much control over the catapult as I did.
“Can I try something?” Winnie asked nervously.
“Whatever it is, do it quickly,” Vanessa snapped.
I peered over to see Winnie had stood upright a step in front of me, and she had her wand aimed directly at the catapult. I wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but as I noticed her take several deep breaths, I started getting an inkling that it wasn’t a spell she often performed.
“Quid c-confracta reparabit,” Winnie said with a slight break in her voice.
“Stronger,” I grunted as I strained against the power. “It needs to be stronger, to show you’re the one in charge.”
“Quid confracta reparabit!” the anxious witch shouted.
A white light shot from her wand and hit the center of the catapult. The light wrapped around the object like a thin cloud, and I instantly sensed the power on my side loosen as Winnie took control.
“Hold it there,” Theodora murmured. “You’ll know when the spell has worked, but you can’t break it until the moment occurs.”
Winnie’s body began to shake, and her face winced in pain, but she held the spell and refused to let it go. Then I heard the loud snap of wood, followed by the rattle of metal as the catapult began to unhinge and break in the air.
The catapult broke into separate pieces, and as the wood and shrapnel rained down onto the men that stood underneath, Winnie dropped the spell, and the backfire sent the young witch flying onto her back as she let out a loud groan.
The distraction from the broken catapult gave Theodora and Lilith the opportunity to kill as many men as they could, but I didn’t have the time to stand around and watch them.
The warlocks had entered the school, and I needed to get back to business.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I helped Winnie to her feet.
“Yeah,” she said with a light laugh. “I just didn’t expect the impact.”
“You did a wonderful job, but the action doesn’t stop here,” I said as I peered at Winnie and Vanessa in turn. “I’m going to float around the school, but you can stay here if you’d prefer that.”
“We’ll follow you, my lord.” Vanessa smiled.
“Great, then let’s go,” I replied.
As soon as we left the room, the carnage from around the school was clear in the air. I heard the smashing of walls and the screams and shouts that came from students. Then a flash of green light illuminated the stairwell, so I ran there first to see what was going on.
“Volant!” a female voice shouted.
“Tardesco!” a warlock cried out.
As I sprinted down the stairs, I noticed one student had been frozen in place from the spell, and the warlock sauntered toward her with his wand raised in the air.
“Allucinatio,” I said as I jumped down the final four stairs.
The warlock halted in place, and then his entire body began to twitch as the spell worked its way up to his head and down to his toes. Then I clicked my fingers, and automatically the man’s body exploded in front of us. My shirt was painted in his blood and scraps of his skin, and a bloody mess was left on the ground where the warlock once stood.
Vanessa removed the spell from the student that kept her in place, and the witch gave us a shaky thank you before she ran away. I briefly glanced around the hallway to make sure no other students needed my help, and then Vanessa, Winnie, and I continued to sprint through the school. At first, I didn’t have a particular destination in mind, and I followed the school halls without thinking much about it, but I knew what I had to do.
In order to defeat the warlocks, we needed to eliminate them. It was almost like extinguishing a fire and aiming for the source to conquer the flames. The majority of our threats congregated at the front of the school, so we had to eliminate the warlocks and non-believers outside in order to get the upper-hand, especially when we still had the threat of the creatures to consider. We’d destroyed the catapult, and I wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to create another one.
We ran toward a second set of stairs, but before I could reach them, a red burst of light appeared from a nearby classroom. A high-pitched noise then followed the explosion, and I instantly knew someone had used the excandescunt spell to grab someone’s attention.
“Vanessa, can you go and see what’s going on in there?” I asked as I pointed toward the classroom.
“Of course,” Vanessa replied and then ran toward the classroom.
Winnie and I headed for the stairwell, and although the young witch kept up with my pace and obeyed my every command, I knew Winnie was getting tired, and her labored breathing was a sign of how much this battle had taken its toll on her. But it pleased me that she powered on, and it showed a lot of inner strength and determination.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to say anything to Winnie, because the second we arrived on the next floor, we were met with a number of warlocks, witches, and familiars all aiming for each other. Bright lights exploded in all directions, an angry wave of voices hit my ears, and it took a second for me to take in the entire situation.
“Do whatever you have to do,” I said to Winnie as I noticed the fear in her eyes. “Use what you’ve learned in the past.”
“Okay,” Winnie muttered.
And then the slaughter began.
Two warlocks had their backs to me, so I snuck up behind them before they could notice me. I grabbed one of them by the hair and sliced his throat with my dagger, and he let out a gargled groan as his blood soaked his front. Then, before the second man could react, I shot him in the chest with my wand, and a grunt left his mouth as he crumpled. The two men fell to their knees, but before the second man found the energy to stand, I aimed my wand at him again.
“Flatus,” I ordered.
A lime-green light shot from my wand, and the warlock’s body was instantly engulfed in flames. His screams pierced my eardrums, but only a second passed before the noise died down as the fire took over the man’s head.
Then I left him to die as I focused on my next victim.
I spotted one witch had been cornered into a wall with two warlocks around her. I could see the fear in the girl’s eyes, and she turned her head from side to side like she was trying to work out what to do, but then I appeared behind them.
“Praemium,” I said as I aimed my wand at the first warlock.
The man didn’t have the time to react before his head was blown clean off from his shoulders, and his body crashed to the floor. Then I turned to the second man and grabbed a hold of his wrist before he could aim his wand at the petrified girl in the corner.
The warlock opened his mouth to say something, but I was one step ahead.
“Glacio,” I said with the tip of my wand against his temple.
A wall of frost started to appear on the man’s neck, and it worked its way up until it covered his entire head. Then I mumbled the spell again, and his frozen head shattered in icy cold shards of glass.
A bolt of blue light suddenly whizzed past my head and smashed against the nearby wall. Whoever had taken the shot missed me by an inch, but I was about to show him what a real shot looked like.
I turned on my feet and instantly noticed a warlock with his wand raised in my direction. The anger and fury were clear on his face, and he opened his mouth to mutter something else, but I aimed my wand at him before he could get a word out.
“Silentium,” I said firmly.
A white light left my wand, and the warlock’s mouth was instantly sewed shut. He still had the power to use his wand, but his movements were limited without the use of his mouth.
“Before you take a shot, perhaps know who you’re aiming at,” I said as I towered over the warlock.
The man let out muffled noises as he tried to shout through his closed lips, but the frown and the look in his eyes told me how angry he was. The warlock didn’t look scared, but I was about to make him shit his pants.
I held my hand up by the warlock’s face as I thought about which route to take. I could have snapped his neck, I could have pierced my dagger into his chest, or I could have used a spell to tease and torture him until he died. I wanted his death to be quick yet painful, so I clicked my fingers, and a thick, metal chain appeared around the man’s neck and draped over his shoulders.
“I’m going to tighten this chain until you take your last breath and your eyes pop from their sockets,” I chuckled. “You’ve made the wrong decision coming here today, but I think you already know that.”
I kept the hex against his mouth so he couldn’t open it, and although I loved it when my prey begged and pleaded for mercy, I didn’t want to hear him mutter a single word.
I took both ends of the chain in my hands and tied them together in a loose knot at the base of his neck. I then twisted my wrist slowly, and as my hand moved, the knot tightened more and more. The warlock’s face turned red, and I noticed the strain in his neck as the knot grew tighter while the pressure increased.
His muffled screams were like music to my ears.
A second warlock then appeared in the corner of my eye, but I left the first man to suffer under the pressure of the chains and turned my gaze to check out the new arrival. He stood for a second, like he was trying to evaluate the situation, but his brief hesitation gave me the perfect advantage.
I saw the warlock reach for his wand, but I didn’t need a wand for what I was going to do. The fucking idiot should have come with a devised plan, and now he was about to die due to his lack of preparation.
I held my left hand up in the air as I thought about the move I was going to make, and as the plan became clearer in my mind, a red mist grew in circular motions in my palm. I waited until the ball filled my entire hand, and then I threw it at the warlock, and it smacked him right in the chest. The man stumbled backward from the impact, and his back smashed against a wall as he let out a deep groan.
The mist acted as a weight that kept the warlock up against the wall, and despite how much he struggled, grunted, and tried to force the weight off his body, the warlock couldn’t find the strength to move.
“Morsus,” I ordered, and a deep green light shot from my palm.
The green light took over for the red mist, and a hole began to tear through the man’s stomach. The warlock let out an ear-piercing scream as the light eroded his skin and bones, and as blood poured down his front, his organs quickly followed. A string of intestines dropped to the ground with a loud splatter, and the more blood and guts that left his body, the weaker the warlock’s screams became.
I used that brief second of freedom to take in the area.
Screams and shouts floated around the walls, and the floor around me was littered with dead warlocks, but the witches in the hallway had the remaining warlocks under their control. I noticed one man cowering on the floor, and a witch stood over him with her wand aimed at his face. I spotted Winnie further down the hallway, but one dead warlock laid at her feet, and a second man was slowly on his way out. Winnie had produced a small fire which sat inches away from the warlock, and I noticed how she used her wand to guide the fire closer toward her chosen victim.
Vanessa hadn’t come downstairs after I’d told her to help out the student in the classroom, but I just assumed the professor had found other students who needed her help. I also hadn’t seen any of my coven since the fight began, but the school was so large, and there were many targets to hit, so I knew they were doing me proud somewhere in the vicinity of Scholomance.
I then turned back around again to the warlock with the chain around his neck, and he tried to pull the chain away from his throat, but the hold was too strong. The chain wouldn’t move an inch, but then I took control of the metal again and twisted my hand, and the chain wrapped tighter around his throat.
It only took a brief minute for the chains to do their job, and seconds after the life left his eyes, the warlock’s brain exploded all over me, and chunks of brain matter smacked me in the face and decorated my shirt.
I loved being covered in the blood and guts of my enemies.
The corpse collapsed to the floor, and the chains instantly vanished the second I removed the hex that had held them in place.
I spent the next thirty minutes floating around the school, and I assisted my army in any way I could. I caught a few warlocks off-guard and killed them instantly, or I acted as a distraction to give my women the opportunity to take the final shot. More and more warlocks died as the minutes slipped by, and it was clear my group had the upper-hand, but the fight wasn’t over just yet.
We still had the creatures to face and the few remaining rebels who stood alongside them.
“Cole,” a voice sounded as I neared the main doors of the school.
I turned and noticed Akira leaning against a wall with a devilish grin on her face. Her uniform was painted in blood, her hair was a mess, but the black-eyed witch looked as though she’d spent the day doing what she loved the most.
And in some ways, she had.
“It looks like you’ve been successful,” I said as I eyed her bloody clothing.
“Oh, my lord, I cannot tell you how much fun that was!” Akira gave me a radiant smile. “Freyja, Della, Remy, and I came across a bunch of those fucking non-believers in a classroom, and you should have seen us! At one point I had one of the warlocks in the air, and as I threw him across the room, Freyja pierced him in the chest with an arrow!”
The feisty witch hopped up and down on her feet as she retold the story, and the bright smile never left her face.
“I wish I was there to witness it,” I laughed. “Have you seen the others?”
“Yeah.” Akira nodded. “I bumped into Nyx and Astrid at one point, and they had been just as successful as us.”
“I didn’t expect anything less.” I smirked. “But now that we’ve got the warlocks under control, can you rally up the rest of the army and have them join me outside?”
“Of course, master,” she replied. “What’s the plan?”
“It’s not a plan as such.” I shrugged. “I just know we’ve got those creatures to face next, so the more of us who stand guard outside, the easier and quicker it’ll be to defeat them.”
“Oooh, I can’t wait to watch those fuckers suffer,” Akira said with a sinister smile.
“And you soon will.” I grinned.
Akira chuckled, promised me that she’d gather as many witches as possible, and then ran off down the hall.
I left the main doors and instantly welcomed the icy breeze in the evening air, but before I could examine the courtyard, a terrifying scream came from a witch somewhere around me.
I raced around the side of the school as I followed the harrowing sound, and I found a student pressed up against the brick wall. A warlock held his wand against the girl’s neck and a dagger in his other hand, with the tip of the blade positioned just under her pink eyes. A small line of blood trickled down the girl’s cheek, and her piercing screams continued to vibrate through the air.
Before the warlock could make another move, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him away from the student. I tightened my hold as much as I could, and I felt his body twist from side to side as he tried to escape, but that only made me hold on tighter.
Then I slipped my wand back into my pocket and grabbed his head with my spare hand. The man groaned and grunted from the pain, and I let out a menacing laugh as I took in his pain and torment.
“Scream as loud as you want,” I whispered harshly into his ear. “No one is around to help you, and you’re going to die either way.”
“Fuck you!” the warlock spat as he continued to twist his body. “You have no idea what’s about to--”
His talking annoyed me, so I shut him up with a twist of his neck, which killed him instantly.
I left his body to drop to the ground, and the witch against the wall let out a shriek as the dead body landed by her feet. The cut under her eye had already healed, but her eyes were rimmed with tears, and her hands shook violently as she brushed back her brown hair.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said with a watery smile. “T-Thank you for saving me, my lord. I’m sorry, I… I just panicked.”
“You can’t die,” I replied. “My seed grows inside your womb, and your body and soul are bound to me, so there is no need to fear. The fight isn’t over yet, but it won’t last much longer. Go kill more warlocks.”
“Yes, Master.” She nodded. “I’ll be fine in a minute and then resume my attacks.”
“Good.” I smiled.
I left the woman to catch her breath as I walked back around to the front of the school, and I saw the ground was littered with dead bodies, blood, and various lost limbs. The front gates had been demolished, and the surrounding walls had been knocked down, but I was more interested in our threat. The number of warlocks had dwindled majorly, and now all that was left were the creatures and few remaining non-believers who stood in the distance.
They could attack at any moment, but I wanted to give them one final message before they let the beasts free.
I was the Dark Lord, I was Satan reborn, and nothing they could do was ever going to change that.
I knew they could see the carnage that littered the school grounds, but I wanted to give them a better view and show them exactly what we’d done.
I stared down at my feet where a beheaded warlock laid, and then I grabbed him by his cloak and yanked him up into the air. Droplets of warm, congealed blood splattered onto my hands, and the top of his spine had broken free from his bloody wound.
I continued to hold the warlock up by the neck of his cloak, but after a long moment, I dropped the man on the ground as I looked out across the grassy plains before me. The final non-believers stood in a straight line with the creatures behind them. Some of the beings were locked in cages, and some were tied to metal chains, but all of them had their eyes pointed in my direction.
Then I turned my head from left to right, and I took in the audience around me and the determination that covered their faces. There were students of all ages, skills, and weaknesses, but they were my army for a reason, and I knew we had the power to defeat these motherfuckers.
“Ready!” one of the non-believers shouted to the others around him. “Go!”
Then, one by one, the men dropped the metal chains and opened the cages to release the creatures.
“Prepare yourselves,” I said to my group.
The ground trembled beneath my feet, and all I could hear were the growls and snorts that came from the creatures as they raced toward us.