Jes watched in silence after the Imperials had wiped out the police like it was nothing. There was a part of her that was filled with wonder at the idea of magic, a part that always had been. Suddenly, the reality of magic turned that wonder into ash in her mouth. Here was a force capable of taking so many lives in mere seconds. It made guns seem almost trivial in comparison.

“How are we supposed to fight that?” Rock asked, as though he had read Jes’ mind.

Hadrian only shook his head as he rose to his feet, looking down and over the Imperial encampment. “The usual answer would be with other spellweavers, you have none though.”

“We have bombs though.” Jes offered, rising slowly from her crouch. For a while, in Hadrian’s calm presence, she had thought that maybe this Rift between worlds wasn’t an all bad thing. Trade and discoveries waiting on the other side. Now, looking down at the Imperial encampment, she fully realized that the Rift hadn’t brought an expedition, it had brought an invasion. The elves showed no sign of wanting anything from humanity but their extermination. A chill raced down Jes’ spine as she looked over the camp. Tens of thousands of elves. Tens of thousands of invaders.

“It looks like not many of the magi survived.” Hadrian observed quietly.

“Well that’s something at least.” Rock wasn’t looking down at the camp, he was looking at the sky. “We should get out of here.” He said at last, pointing up when the others looked at him.

“Shit.” Jes said before she turned and ran back toward where they had left the horses.

Hadrian easily outpaced them, but he didn’t run too far ahead, like he was looking out for them, keeping close.

The brilliant, blue-white clouds were crawling across the sky in a generally north easterly direction, right toward them. It took them precious minutes to reach the horses and Jes wished fervently that they had just taken the horses with them all the way to where they had observed the Elven camp. Surely this danger was worse than whatever notice the horses may have brought from the camp. Jes threw herself into Punkin’s well worn saddle, Rock only steps behind her and onto the other horse. Hadrian leapt into his saddle with ease, as though he were used to jumping into the saddle and riding with urgency.

Even as Rock and Jes whirled their horses and urged them into a flat run, the first bolts of dark lightning filled the sky. The thunder seemed as much a feeling as a sound as it rumbled through them almost continually. The sound of it was so deafening that Jes couldn’t even hear the sound of her own heartbeat over it. She certainly felt the rapid pulse as her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest in a panic. The first strike hit a tree in the fence line of the ditch. The tree exploded in black fire and burning bits of wood that flew like shrapnel. Punkin shied away from the explosion, losing her footing and stumbling. Jes tried to balance on the stumbling horse, tried to stay in the saddle so she would have a hope of running. Rock and Hadrian out paced her, Rock trying to rein in his mount and stay close to Jes. Another bolt of lightning landed behind the riders and Rock’s horse bolted forward, forcing him to hold on for dear life.

Hadrian’s mount was less bothered by the storm of dark lightning, but even his mount refused to turn back toward Jes, no matter how much he tried. Three bolts of dark lightning crashed to the ground in quick succession and Punkin threw Jes off her back. Jes landed with a thud, her already injured body crying out in protest. Jes pushed herself to her hands and knees, her head reeling as she tried to rise to her feet.

Punkin reared up as another bolt of dark, purple shrouded lightning struck. This one directly struck the horse. Punkin screamed, surrounded by a corona of purple-black flames. As much as she wanted to go to the wildly bucking horse she had had for so many years, Punkin was like a tornado of flame shrouded hooves.

Instead, Jes stumbled to her feet and started running away from the horse and the storm. Unmounted, there was no way she would escape the wrath of the blue-white clouds and their dark lightning. Rock and Hadrian, still mounted, were quickly outpacing her, running east along the westbound shoulder of the interstate, kicking up gravel. Each bolt of dark lightning seemed to draw light out of the world, apparently causing the inverse of the strobic effect of normal lightning. Bolts shot down almost continuously, giving Jes a few of her surroundings only in the brief flashes between strikes.

The tail of Hadrian’s horse passing over the rise.

Rock’s horse shying away from another tree that exploded with dark fire.

A rabbit shooting across the roadway, running hell bent to escape the storm.

Punkin raced past her, just out of reach, running faster than Jes had ever seen, still shrouded in the violet-edged black flames.

There was a final dark flash, filling her vision in those strange purple-edged flamed, and Jes felt the crash of thunder rumble through her body. Her heartbeat stuttered, stalled for a moment, then raced. She was aware of all of this in the instant of impact. Then she was aware of nothing else.