After discussing the plan, we wait tensely for Kalanthia to make her move. At least we’re still downwind so hopefully the yelnas won’t detect us as she takes her time. She’s motionless and silent, crouched against a boulder and almost completely blending into it. If not for our Bond, I suspect she’d be invisible to me – she has her stealth running full bore. Certainly Thiar and Nurisoth keep glancing around with frowns on their faces that I assume are due to losing track of the powerful Tier three.

  Not that I’m paying much attention to anything but my own task right now – Kalanthia isn't the only one working magic. Having already prepared my wings and weapons, I don’t hold any mana back, pressing it into the earth through my feet and then sending it up the mountainside towards what will shortly be the battleground.

  What I’m doing is a little experimental, but I’m almost certain it will work. The main problem with Earth magic is that it takes a long time to reshape the earth – or a lot of magic. And using my whole mana pool in the middle of a battle is a good way to make me almost useless otherwise, especially in a battle like this where my opponents’ strengths are in their physical durability.

  From what Sulir and the others have said, I’m expecting each of the yelnas here to have at least ten thousand units of health, unless they’re more magic-focussed – which is its own challenge. But I figure that it’s unlikely there will be many of the latter – apparently only one yelna in twenty or thirty tends to Evolve to be magic-focussed. There’s likely to be one or two of them in this group, but with any luck, they’ll be the ones getting buried by Kalanthia.

  I pull my thoughts back on topic, finding them wandering a little. I don’t have forever to figure this out – we’ll need to hit shortly after Kalanthia does her thing.

  Actually, my actions are somewhat inspired by her own. What she’s doing right now is impressively delicate. She’s not trying to saturate the whole cliff face with her magic – her mana pool might be big, but such an endeavour is probably beyond even her. Instead, she’s searching for the faultlines and coating them, leaving her presence to linger even as she continues.

  I can see what she’s intending – she’ll crack the cliff face open like a diamond might be shaped by a jeweller: carefully, and precisely. And, with any luck, she won’t accidentally bring half the cliff down on us in the process.

  What I’m trying to do is similar, but slightly different. She’ll use gravity to close her trap; I can’t. What I want to do is to create a maze – the yelnas are dangerous by themselves, and will be completely overwhelming as a group. But if I can pin each of them in place so we can pick them off, practically at our leisure? We might be able to win this without anyone dying.

  But that means I need to be quick – and with the amount of space I need to cover, I won’t have enough mana to do so if I start when the battle is already engaged. But watching Kalanthia work reminded me of something: earth isn’t always slow.

  Cliffs collapse in seconds. Avalanches reach a tipping point and then start moving with threatening speed. Volcanos seem quiet to outside eyes until the moment they erupt with fury. And earthquakes are the sudden movement of one or more tectonic plates.

  All of those are caused by the build up of potential energy. Rocks reach a tipping point where gravity overcomes inertia, pressure builds until the moment something snaps. And what is mana but another form of energy? Or rather, Energy, the substance that seems to be the combination of all other types of energy.

  And so I’m taking the time in the lull before the battle begins to create my own ‘earthquake’ by feeding more and more of my mana into the ground in front of the cliff. This would never work on a moving target, and I’m not certain it will work now, but I’m confident enough to take two mana potions – I will only be able to take one more until they’ve worked their way out of my system or I’ll hurt myself.

  At first, the earth accepts my earth-affinity mana willingly, like water soaking into dry ground. Then, like newly saturated ground, it attempts to spread the mana into areas where there is little.

  I don’t let it. Instead, I force more.

  From that moment, it becomes a challenge. It’s not something that would be possible with water – there is only so much that can be packed into a space. Not so with mana. The only limit is my will, and that is increasingly tested.

  I’m vaguely aware of sweat running down my forehead, of my teeth clenching so tightly that twinges of pain are going through my jaw. But I pay none of those physical signs any heed – the moment I relax my will even slightly, I will lose control.

  And then I feel it. A shudder, a shake, a rumble, a roar as Kalanthia triggers every single fracture that she coated, all at once.

  The interior of the cliff face changes in an instant; what was once a warren of tunnels and tubes becomes a mass of jumbled rock, the mana within it fracturing until it looks more like a fractured vase instead of the smooth and steady lines of before.

  It’s my signal.

  I relax a fraction of my control – and only in very specific places. Like a volcano with lava forcing its way through the weakest parts of the rock to create vents, the agitated mana I have been holding under pressure forces its way through where my control has weakened.

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  A new rumble fills the air and I sense surprise and awe from Sirocco and Noir. A notification nags at me, but I ignore it.

  Did it work? I ask Sirocco anxiously. I think it did, but right now there is so much jumbled mana in the area that it’s hard to tell where the actual rock is.

  She sends me a picture of the area in front of the cliffs and I sigh in relief. It’s not perfect – as a maze, it leaves much to be desired. But the thirteen yelnas who were out of the tunnels at the time I released the magic are now separated from each other by at least one wall of rock, sometimes more.

  They’re not happy about it – I see two of them ripping at the stone walls suddenly around them with teeth and claws. Another actually runs straight into the one now blocking its path. But that doesn’t bother me.

  It worked, I tell my companions, sagging against Lathani who moves to prop me up. I check my mana pool. It must have ripped even more from me than I was expecting – I’m almost out.

  I must remember never to do this in the middle of a battle. The thought of being this vulnerable among beings trying to kill me makes me shiver.

  “My lord, are you well?” Sulir asks, sounding concerned.

  “It looks like mana exhaustion,” Sorya judges briskly. “Here.” She presses a mana potion into my hand – one that will give me two hundred mana immediately and increase my regeneration rate by twenty percent over ten flames. It’s nowhere near as good as Meditation, but I don’t have to do anything for it. I don’t complain, and instead knock it back, returning the empty vial to her. I won’t be able to take any more of those for a while now, but hopefully that will be fine.

  “Thanks,” I tell her gratefully. “You guys go – as we planned.”

  They don’t want to leave me on my own – nor do Bastet or Catch – but I remind them about Kalanthia and they accept it. They know as well as I do that leaving the yelnas to their own devices for too long isn’t a good idea. I’ll join them shortly, but after that particular magical endeavour, I need some time to recover.

  I fold to the ground when Lathani leaves, uncertain about why I’m still feeling so exhausted. I’ve already got the two hundred mana units back from the potion, so it’s not pure mana exhaustion. It’s probably more to do with just how much willpower I used to keep control of the mana – I have the same sense of overextension that I do after I’ve held a Battle of Wills too long.

  I glance over at Kalanthia who’s unmoving, panting slightly with her eyes half-closed. Perhaps she’s suffering the same thing.

  “Do you want a mana potion too?” I ask her roughly. She doesn’t answer for a moment, but then sends a faint sense of assent. I force myself to my feet with great difficulty and stumble over to her. Pulling one of River’s beast-friendly mana potions out, I tip it into the giant nunda’s mouth. Then I sit heavily back on the ground, hearing the roars already erupting from the battle that’s just out of view.

  Thank you, Markus Wolfe, she replies after a moment, sounding stronger. I will be well soon. I must just sit quietly for a time.

  “I could do with that too,” I agree.

  We lapse into silence and I pull up the notification that is nagging at me. My eyebrows rise up to my hairline as I see it. I wasn’t exactly trying to improve my Skills, but I seem to have done so nonetheless.

  That was enough to push past the bottleneck? I suppose that it’s overcoming one of the biggest drawbacks of earth-magic, I muse. I consider the implications, particularly of where it seems to almost emphasise that I may not need to remain connected to my effect if I put more practice into it – that would be incredibly useful for traps.

  Then again, I suppose that the earth lends itself nicely to traps – pitfalls, rockfalls, quicksand, mud and bogs…. My mind races but I push my thoughts away. Exciting as that might be, I can’t forget that my companions have just gone into a difficult battle and I need to concentrate on recovering so I can go and help them.

  Taking refuge in Kalanthia’s presence, I dip into Medium Meditation – though my exhaustion might not stem solely from lack of mana, the quicker I can regenerate my mana, the more use I’ll be once I’m able to rejoin the battle. Anyway, Meditation is likely to help with soul over-extension, or whatever the problem is.

  Within a few minutes, I’m feeling much better. I open my eyes and stand, feeling none of the weakness that previously assaulted me.

  “How are you doing?” I ask Kalanthia quietly. She’s very still.

  Better, thank you, she replies. However, I have some more work to do – some of the cliff face is unstable and I must ensure that it will not fall upon you if someone crashes into it in the wrong place – or an arrow mis-fires. I grin sheepishly at her.

  “Alright, do what you need to. Hopefully we’ll be fine even without you.”

  Call if you need me desperately, she instructs me. I will join you when I have finished my task here.

  “Great,” I agree, then offer her a nod and spread my air-wings. I’m coming, everyone.

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