The crimson witch

impaling itself two hundred times, and kicked out the last of its quasi-life.
        “You got it!” Jake shouted, jubilant.
        “Good,” Kaliglia said, relieved.
        But the centipede behind them leaped up, no longer indolent, and slithered across the bridge toward them.
        They turned to it.
        It reared, its mouth sucking.
        Cheryn squinted.
        She shifted her magics into power.
        It rushed them ululating.
        Suddenly, the earth itself reared up beneath the beast and sent it toppling backwards. The rocks and shale and dirt beneath it boiled and slashed it as efficiently as sharp knives. It reversed, tried to get away from the phenomena. Jake could see, through the illusion, that the earth was not touched. This was only a Thob, too, this shower of cutting rocks, a mirage of nonetheless deadly force summoned to do battle with another and equally deadly mirage. At last, the Thob reared, tumbled backward over the lip of the gorge, spouting fluid, and crashed to the bottom. A hail of earth and rocks, shale and boulders followed it, burying it.
        When they turned, the body of the first centipede that had been impaled on the iron stakes was gone.
        So were the stakes.
        Then the sky dropped.
        The other Talented had liked Cheryn's trick with the rocks. He used it himself, making the sky open over them and drop upon them a wide assortment of stones, some large and some small, boulders and pebbles.
        Cheryn squinted again.
        Immediately, fierce winds sprang up about them, though they did not ruffle Jake's shirt or Cheryn's robe.
        The rocks caught in the air streams and hurtled away, falling with heavy thuds to both sides of the trio.
        Jake cheered again.
        Kaliglia rumbled.
        “Look for a Talented hiding in the woods,” Cheryn said between clenched teeth. “We can't keep dodging his attacks all day. We have to know where he's at and thrust an offensive at him.”
        Jake knelt and scanned the woods.
         Boom-boom-boom! the rocks fell about him, shaking the earth but never mangling the flesh they had been summoned to mangle. As they fell, struck, and settled into stillness, they disappeared. The enemy Talented needed his magics to manufacture more to drop on them.
        A flash of orange…
        A crescent of it…
        A black robe…
        “I see him!” Jake snapped.
        Suddenly the boulders ceased to fall.
        Instead, the ground had mouths.
        Sharp-toothed mouths that opened everywhere on the dirt and began snapping at their heels, their toes.
        Cheryn shouted in pain.
        Her right foot was bloody.
        Jake stomped at a mouth, felt teeth slide across his shin. He pulled back. It got his sandal.
        Kaliglia rumbled, yelped.
        Abruptly, they all had steel shoes, even the dragon.
        The teeth broke off as the mouths continued snapping at them.
        Then the mouths were gone.
        “Where is he?” Cheryn asked, gasping.
        “There. By the large boulder. Crouched beside it. There where the two pine trees-”
        “I see him.”
        She squinted again.
        Jake wished he could do something.
        In an instant, the woods behind the enemy Talented were filled with licking red flames that swam through the trees, catching none of the branches but swarming toward the lone man crouched by the boulder where the two pine trees-
        The Talented stood, knowing that he was known, no longer trying to conceal himself. The orange crescent of the House of Lelar rippled across the front of his costume, a challenge to Cheryn's courage. But an emblem did not phase her. The fires continued to burn through the trees, nearer and nearer to him.
        He came out of the woods and stared across the field at her.
        She waved.
        He clenched his fists.
        Jake thought he saw him squint.
        Then grasses sprung up about them, grasses that grew white like albino feather creatures. But then the feathers grew wet and sleek like strings. The strings writhed like worms.
        Cheryn speeded up the advance of the flames.
        The man continued walking toward them.
        The white worms laced about their feet.
        Jake jerked his leg to free it but could not move. The white worm-grass-feathers held him securely, crept up his legs, growing longer and longer, wrapping his ankles