Grey Aetheric burst 3

“Casters!” the leader gasped out. “Release spells!”

I sucked in a terrified breath as dozens of spells shot toward Arthur. Regis stiffened, but did not move away as we both watched Arthur raise a hand.

A shower of bright purple light exploded forward, like ten thousand lightning-bolts all tied together at their tails. The hail of spellfire converging on Arthur vanished into the radiant blast as it kept fanning out from him. The leader’s eyes widened and he scrambled back, several shields appearing in front of him, but it wasn’t enough. He, too, vanished in the blast, shields and all.

The amethyst wave rolled over the front line of the enemy forces, then crackled out, leaving only a bright pink afterimage that I couldn’t blink away.

Arthur was unhurt. None of the spells had even reached him. The Alacryan leader was entirely gone, and the closest battle groups had been reduced to smoking lumps.

The rest were so motionless I would have thought time itself had stopped, except that Arthur took a single, steady step forward and leveled them with an imperious glare. “Leave now. It’s not too late.”

Like the breaking of a spell, the Alacryans burst into sudden panicked movement, stumbling over themselves and each other as they began to flee.

The columns of sand shuddered and reversed course, falling back up to the desert it had come from. The Alacryans were sprinting back into the columns, their shadows just visible as the magic lifted them up and out of the cavern.