The Path of Giants

target of this confidence, as if me and everyone else in the world were just pieces in some game, and he was the one who made up the rules.
I checked on Whitley with a stiff turn of my head against the dteria muffling my mouth. He was rising into the air beside me, as Valinox lifted his other hand up.
Endell got up from the ground with a mean look on his face. “I guess it’s no surprise that a demigod has perfect timing,” he commented to Valinox as he walked over to him.
“Hurry up. My dagger’s on the other side.”
Endell went around the demigod and pulled the dagger out of the small sheath on Valinox’s belt. I tried to blow Endell back with Expel. It would buy us time. Valinox couldn’t hold the two of us up indefinitely, and I was sure Kataleya would bring help soon. But I couldn’t seem to cast anything with dteria completely enclosing my hands as they were pinned to my sides.
The damn smoke. I should’ve known better. I had practiced this.
I found the familiar four notes of dvinia again and focused my foggy mind on casting out of the one part of my body that wasn’t blocked by dteria, my forehead just above my eyes.
My mana came together and shot out at Endell. It knocked him off his feet and onto his back as he had been one step away from stabbing Whitley.
He picked himself up as he complained to Valinox, “You said he wouldn’t be able to cast.”
“I didn’t think he would do it from his head. Hurry up! They are coming. The healer first, like I told you.”
Endell made a wide arc around me. I panicked as I figured he was coming up behind me. I tried to free myself physically by squirming again, but there was no way out. I wildly casted Expel from the back of my head, hoping to strike him. I neither heard nor felt anything.
I wasn’t sure if there was time, but I casted a different spell now. It was a spell I hadn’t practiced in a while, but I felt the three octaves of G come together smoothly. The mana came out from my head and grabbed the dteria around me. There was so much of it that I couldn’t get my mana around all of it. I did the best I could, my spell latching on to Valinox’s. Then I pulled away from myself with all my strength.
Valinox, already strained from holding the two of us up, collapsed to one knee. I fell, finally free.
I turned, expecting to find Endell coming up on me with the dagger, but he had chosen another target. He was driving the knife in Whitley’s back as Kataleya’s father screamed in agony. They both fell, Endell on top of Whitley.
I was almost there as Endell was about to drive the dagger into Whitley’s upturned chest. I prepared my spell, but I was struck with something fierce just before I could get it out. I rolled backward too fast to keep track of where I was going, realizing after the fact that Valinox had hit me with dteria.
Kataleya ran past me as I started to get up, but Valinox tossed her back as he had done to me. Whitley had a couple holes in his chest, and no doubt his back as well, blood oozing out, as Endell got off him and trudged toward me.
“Hold the healer,” he called over his shoulder, blood smeared across his face.
Valinox raised his arm and lifted me from the ground, but I was ready this time. I had my hand outstretched toward Endell as the dteria slipped off my arm and locked around my waist. My hand was still free.
I lifted Endell and held him suspended in the air. I was past the point of mercy. I just needed a moment to prepare.
Then I flung him as high as I could.
I knew Valinox could not do the same to me. He could not cast with intentions of killing. He feared exercising that kind of power would attract Gourfist, who was asleep in the center of Curdith Forest. He also feared that his father, Basael, the one true god—according to legend—would descend upon Valinox with wrath.
Valinox didn’t take his enraged eyes off me, not until Endell started to come down with a scream. Valinox finally let me go to catch Endell with dteria.
“Jon, my father!” Kataleya yelled.
“Hold them off,” I said with great fear, not sure Kataleya was up to the task. But there wasn’t much time. Her father was bleeding out.
I slid across the grass on my knees, bumping Whitley, who had fallen unconscious. I put my hands over his wounds and started to heal. I could hear the footsteps of many more coming to help, but I couldn’t look up.
The spell drained me. He had three knife wounds in his chest, and I didn’t know how many in his back.
“It’s too late. Get me out of here,” I heard Endell telling Valinox.
“Not until you kill the healer, but kill the girl first.”
I heard a muffled scream from Kataleya. I stopped healing and turned toward her.
Endell was jumping at her as Valinox had her suspended in the air. He took her to the ground and slammed the dagger into the center of her chest.
“No!” I yelled, forgetting my task with Whitley. I charged Endell and blasted him off Kataleya with dvinia as he ripped the dagger out and was about to stab her again. I was picked up off the ground nearly at the same time, Valinox enclosing me with dteria once again. But a large group of armed men were charging the demigod.
“We need to go now!” Endell yelled from the ground.
“You idiot. I told you to kill the healer before you got your revenge!” Valinox tossed Endell into the air, then took off right after him.
I didn’t bother watching them go, falling over Kataleya as she gasped with her hand over her bloodied