Evening the Odds (Part 1) 

JASMINE FLAMESWORTH

I reflexively pulled Camellia to my side as the Alacryan mage's command to fire rang across the field, careful to keep the sharp edge of my blades away from her. The two apple trees stepped forward into a guard position in front of our group.

Nothing happened immediately. "Go!" I ordered into the silence.

As Greengate's defenders surged forward, led by the two trundling trees, one of the tube devices exploded, sending a cloud of white fire high into the sky. A wave of dust blew over us, but nothing else.

From the way the Alacryan forces froze in shock, it was easy to guess that wasn't what they'd intended.

"This is our chance," I said breathlessly, "while they're distracted!"

A second tube exploded, and the three Alacryans using it disappeared in the white fire. The rest broke into all out panic. A handful of soldiers were sprinting towards us, while others retreated toward their carts. Then the rest of the tubes went off.

The apple trees leaned down to shield us from the worst of the shockwave, but the wall of heat and dust was still enough to knock me back a step, and one of the girls from Xyrus tumbled over backwards with a yelp. The Alacryans that hadn't been incinerated were nearly all face down in the dirt, and I could tell some of them wouldn't be getting up again.

Suddenly, the odds seemed a lot more even.
"Attack!" I shouted, sprinting forward with a burst of wind at my back.

The soldiers who'd been farthest from the explosions were the first to scramble back to their feet, but my daggers were already spinning toward them. Both men choked out surprised gasps and fell again, then a barrage of spells flew from behind me, ripping through the rest of the undefended front line.

In the space of a few breaths, the Alacryans on our side of the smoking craters were dead.

I could hear shouted orders, pleas for help, and pained screams from beyond the cloud of smoke and dust, but didn't have a clear line of sight to the rest of the Alacryan force. There were still as many as fifty trained soldiers back there, maybe more.

"Jarrod, send the cloud right at them," I said before stepping out of his path.

 He held up both hands, already swirling with wind-attribute mana, and closed his eyes as he focused on the spell. I could sense the mana building around him, a gale growing between his outstretched arms. Finally, he pushed it outward, sending a wall of wind into the slowly rising plume of acrid smoke and dust.

The gale carried the obscuring cloud away from us, right back into the faces—and eyes and mouths—of the remaining Alacryans. I was already flying over the craters before the enemy knew I was coming. Shouts rang out all around and several magical shields hummed to life.

I landed in the middle of four non-mage soldiers who were bent down to check on those caught by the blast. One shouted, and they all sprinted toward me, their swords and spears up. I deflected a spear thrust with one dagger while spinning away from a slashing sword. A second sword glanced off the layer of mana clinging to my body before my blade plunged up between the wielder's ribs, punching right through the chain links of his armor.

Infusing my legs with mana, I leapt straight up over their heads, then leapt again off a step of condensed air. Conjuring a cocoon of circulating wind, I made myself spin. A bolt of green energy flew at me from behind one of the mana shields, but it was caught up in the wind and deflected away.

Although it was hard to see anything specific as I spun like a top in the air, my attention caught on a familiar face. Gideon! I'd met the mad old inventor a few times over the years, but what was he doing in the middle of the Alacryan assault on Greengate?

When I crashed back to the ground between my three attackers, the wind whipped their weapons away and my daggers cut them down like scythes threshing wheat. A moment later, there was a sharp bang from nearby, like the explosion of a firework, but I didn't have time to wonder what it had been.

The rest of the Alacryans were forming up. From what I could see, there were only a few mages left beside the shield casters. All the other soldiers were non-mages, and they had retreated to hide nervously behind a wall of magical shields.

Two battle-groups moved forward in front of the rest, each made up of three Alacryans.

A Caster, a Striker, and a Shield, I recited, remembering what we'd been taught when the Twin Horns had taken on guard duty for shipments to the Wall.

Another green bolt shot at me, but I sidestepped it easily and waited for my allies to catch up. The Caster was a dark-eyed woman with a twitchy, fearful face. Next to her, another woman, easily seven feet tall, was entirely encased in frozen armor. She slammed her icy gauntlets together and snarled as I met her eye.

 A few spells came from behind me, impacting harmlessly against the protective barriers, and then the students from Xyrus Academy and the farmers from Greengate were all there.

"Did you have to go so fast?" Camellia asked from just behind me. "These trees are kind of slow."

I huffed. "Try to keep up, kid." An idea came to me as I watched the Alacryans. They seemed hesitant to launch an assault despite their 
superior training and numbers, and were likely on the edge of breaking ranks and running. "Send in the trees first. Focus on the Shields."

Both apple trees immediately lumbered forward, their bows bending toward the Alacryans. It broke the moment of tension, and green bolts and red jets of mana fired toward them. Wherever the green projectiles struck, the trees withered and died, and the red ray sheared easily through the branches.

Camellia pointed toward the enemy lines and yelled, "Fire!" Apples started flying from the boughs, splashing against the mana shields like little bombs.

When the trees reached the two battle-groups, both Strikers leapt forward, one driving ice-clad fists into a tree's trunk, the other swinging a burning flail. The Shields dropped their spells and retreated as the trees bent down, the grasping limbs ignoring the Casters and Strikers as they reached for the Shields instead. Behind them, the non-mages broke to either side, circling around the trees toward us.

A teenage girl screamed out a battle cry as she conjured stone gauntlets that covered her arms up to her shoulders. Slamming the gauntlets together, she leapt forward to engage the charging non-mages.

My daggers flew, wrapped in wind. The first was deflected by a barrier of swirling air that sent it flying off into the distance, but the other slashed across the back of a soldier's neck before spinning back toward me.

Grabbing my remaining weapon out of the air, I rushed in, skipping away from a green bolt and ducking under a punch from the ice-armored Striker. I spun in place, sending out a burst of condensed air that knocked the mages back, then slammed my dagger into the Striker's side as hard as I could.

The dagger chipped the ice, but didn't harm the mage. To make matters worse, ice condensed around the blade as it slid across the armor, trapping it there and forcing me to release it or risk my hand being caught as well.

With only the sound of gusting flames to warn me, I ducked under the flaming flail, then rolled away from the ice-armored Striker's stomping foot. A slow rolling wave of fire hit her in the back

 an instant later—cast by one of the Xyrus orphans—and wrapped around her like a serpent, quickly eating into the armor.

I flinched as a red beam just missed me. Without looking, I flung a scythe of wind in the Caster's direction.

To my left, the gauntleted mage let out another scream as a spear pierced her side. In the same moment, a pitchfork hurled through the air and slammed awkwardly into her Alacryan attacker's chest, knocking him off his feet. Jarrod's face twisted in fury as he hurled spell after spell, trying to get close enough to pull the girl to safety