Duel (Part 1)

"Great Huema!" he exclaimed to himself, not moving. He grabbed the staff with both hands, and shouted: "I am Okar, wielder of the highest Order"

The crowd didn’t look impressed. They screamed and rolled towards the mage.

A ferocious magical field erupted around Okar, as he let loose his powers for wielding. He murmured a few syllables, his face screwed up in concentration, and the ball of fire flew off towards the front rank of the advancing horde, consuming them.

He laughed, as a wave of screams rewarded his efforts. He reached out with his free hand, and he shaped the magic around him. Three lightning bolts illuminated the night sky, exploding in the middle of the legion, burning up another wave of monsters. At this, the army started running towards him, screaming in rage.

Okar closed his eyes as he recited words made to focus, and remind, and he opened his arms in a mighty gesture. The first line froze in place, as if from extreme cold, and they stood their ground. The next wave shattered the frozen circle, leaving body parts in their wake. He quickly sent three more balls of fire flying towards them, which consumed the new line of the advancing horde.
Yet the army did not seem any smaller or more discouraged.
He waved his staff around him, muttering, and a green tube of light exploded around him, as the field of magic particles solidified. He sat down in the middle just as the first line of the monstrosities reached him. They, upon touching the tube, melted into the ground around it. But the horde, driven by the momentum of their own bulk, didn’t stop and kept battering at the tube. It slowly began to fade.

Knowing that the shield wouldn't last for long, he reached into his pocket, took out a scroll, and looked at it. He muttered something, and the scroll disappeared, leaving a bunch of feathers in his hand.
"I was never very good at aiming" He shrugged.
He thought for a while, and knew that he could not be captured. The ekhonii and dordans were violently hacking at the shield, which glowed with a dull green light now. The thickness of magic around was less. He felt it slip away from him in keeping up that shield.

As it started to fade, the smell of burning flesh hit him.
Rising slowly from the ground with the aid of his staff, he stood and raised himself up two inches from the ground and levitated there. He closed his eyes, and his hands started shaking. He lifted them slowly, waving about the air, drawing glowing symbols that emitted a dark green light.

His magic seeped away from him, as he prepared to let it all go, for a final gesture. The ground started glowing with a dull green light beneath his feet, and it emanated death.
The symbols glowed more and more ferociously and there was a dense feeling in the air for miles around. The circle of death spread beneath the feet of the army, and surrounded the group in an eerie glow. Everything stood still in anticipation, as even the unrelenting dordans ceased their onslaught and looked beneath their feet. Suddenly, realizing something amiss, they doubled their effort at hacking away at the near-invisible shield.

Okar opened his eyes and raised both his hands, embracing the three glowing symbols.

From the corner of his eyes, he saw something twice the size of a horse bounding towards him in an attempt to stop this ritual. He exclaimed loudly

"For Veríl and all her stars! For the love of all that is good! This cannot be!".

Resigning himself, he quickly brought his hands together, and the air imploded around him. The energies that he once battled so hard to control came free from his being. The air screamed in menace, and destruction, as if it had a mind of its own.

A wall of dark green fire exploded from beneath the feet of the army, and swept through the forest, incinerating everything it touched. Fuelled by the magic in the air, it put an end to the mage and the shadow bounding towards him. A scream reverberated through the emptiness as the death hound returned to the elements it crawled out of aeons ago.