HOGWARTS LEGENDS: CHAPTER 1 - OF VALOR AND MAGIC
PART 2: THE BATTLE OF GODSTONE
The sun had not yet broken the horizon when Godric's eyes opened.
Gold flecks caught the pre-dawn light as his pupils contracted. For a moment, he remained still, seated cross-legged in the exact center of the Godstone crater, his breathing creating small clouds in the cold air. His left hand rested open on his knee—the warrior at peace. His right hand held his wand loosely—the wizard at ready. Beside him, his sword stood planted in the ground like a grave marker, its runed blade catching the growing light.
The crater spread around him for three miles in every direction, a perfect circle of black glass that reflected the purple-to-orange-to-blood-red gradient of the dawn sky. Fifty runic stakes surrounded him in geometric patterns, glowing faintly red like dying embers. This was the field where Eadric had died. Where two hundred innocents had been reduced to ash. Where Godric had spent three days preparing for what was to come.
His lips moved, barely audible. "Eadric... Anna... Mother... Forgive me for what I'm about to become."
Then he heard it. Distant at first, but growing steadily louder—the rhythmic crunch of thousands of feet marching in unison. The ground began to tremble. Tiny pebbles on the crater's glass surface started to vibrate.
Godric's eyes snapped fully open, the gold light flaring bright.
He rose from meditation in one fluid motion, pulled his sword from the ground with a ringing tone like a struck bell, and sheathed it on his left hip. His wand remained in his right hand. As he stood, ash swirled around his feet and his red cloak billowed in the wind.
They came with the sunrise.
Five thousand soldiers crested the hills surrounding the crater simultaneously from all directions, their silhouettes backlit by the breaking dawn. Knights on horseback with lances vertical, catching sunlight. Archers in formation with bows strung. Pike men creating a forest of steel. Siege equipment—ballistas and catapults—wheeled into position. Banners rippling in wind, bearing King Cynric's crest.
The sound built into a wall of noise: boots crunching, armor clanking, horses neighing, wheels creaking, officers shouting orders. They formed a perfect ring around the crater, cutting off every escape route.
Not that Godric intended to run.
For several minutes, there was only the standoff. Five thousand pairs of eyes staring at one man. One man staring back, unafraid, as the runic stakes around him hummed with barely restrained power.
Then, from among the soldiers, ten figures in dark robes stepped forward. The Crimson Circle—dark wizards who hunted their own kind for gold and survival. Their leader, Malachar, rode forward on a black horse, stopping thirty feet from Godric.
Complete silence fell. Five thousand men held their breath.
"Last chance, Godric," Malachar called out, his voice magically amplified so everyone could hear.
"I'm giving YOU last chance, Malachar," Godric replied, his own voice carrying with equal clarity.
"One man against five thousand. You've gone mad."
"No." Godric tapped his wand on the ground once, and the fifty runic stakes flared bright red, humming with power. "I've gone to war."
From the rear of the army, King Cynric's voice rang out, shrill and furious: "ARCHERS! KILL HIM!"
One thousand archers drew their bows. The sound of a thousand bowstrings being pulled back created an almost musical drone of tension. Godric stood motionless, watching as fingers released and the sky went black with arrows.
Over a thousand shafts rose in a perfect arc, blotting out the rising sun. The shadow of the arrow cloud swept across the crater like a solar eclipse. Godric stood in that shadow, looking up calmly as the arrows reached their apex and began to fall, whistling and building to a shriek.
At the last possible second, Godric raised his wand.
"Protego Maxima."
Magic erupted from his wand—not a simple dome, but a perfect sphere of shimmering, translucent force. It formed in a fraction of a second, ripples of energy solidifying into geometric patterns like ice forming on a window at impossible speed.
The first arrow hit with a sound like a deep gong. It stopped completely, frozen mid-air. Then another. And another. The impacts blended into a continuous roar as over a thousand arrows struck the shield and hung suspended, creating a perfect hemisphere of frozen death around Godric.
He held the shield for thirty seconds, wand steady and unwavering. Then his expression showed something that might have been contempt.
"Is that your best?" His voice echoed across the crater. "Let me show you mine."
He swept his wand horizontally. "Avis Maxima!"
Magic rippled outward through the suspended arrows. Each black shaft began to glow golden. Wood elongated and split. Fletching became feathers. Points became beaks. Wings unfolded. One thousand arrows became one thousand golden sparrows.
Godric dropped the shield and the flock suddenly burst free, spiraling upward in a perfect vortex of wings and light, rising into the sky with the roar of a thousand wingbeats. It was beautiful—musical, like an orchestra tuning up.
Soldiers stared in awe. Some even smiled. It was magic, pure magic, and for a moment it was wonderful.
Then Godric's wand snapped down.
"Reverso Totalum!"
The golden birds froze mid-flight, glowing brighter—then transformed back into arrows. Still flying. Still fast. But now heading back toward the archers.
The archer captain's horror-struck shout came too late: "SHIELDS! SHIELDS UP!"
The arrows rained down on their own army like black hail. Shields were raised too slowly. Three hundred archers fell, wounded or dead. The remaining seven hundred backed away in panic, refusing to shoot again.
King Cynric's voice cracked with rage. "CAVALRY! CHARGE! CUT HIM DOWN!"
Eight hundred knights on horseback formed up across the crater's rim, lances lowered into charge position. The grizzled cavalry captain raised his lance high and bellowed: "FOR KING AND COUNTRY! FOR GOD AND GLORY!"
"FOR KING AND COUNTRY!" eight hundred knights roared back.
The charge began—first at a trot, then a canter, then full gallop. The ground shook with the thunder of hooves. Muscles rippled on horses. Lances bounced with the rhythm of the charge. The raw power of eight hundred tons of horseflesh and steel converged on the crater's center from all directions.
Godric stood perfectly still, watching them come. Didn't draw his sword. Didn't raise his wand. Just waited as the cavalry closed: forty yards... thirty... twenty...
At fifteen yards, his wand thrust down into the ground.
"Terra Mutatio!"
Magic exploded outward through the earth like golden roots spreading at impossible speed. The ground transformed in a rippling wave: black glass became thick mud. Lead horses hit it at full gallop—their hooves sank deep, momentum carried them forward but their legs couldn't move, and they flipped end over end. Knights were launched from saddles, flying through the air to crash into the mud twenty feet away.
Horses screamed, legs trapped, falling sideways. Knights collided mid-air. It was a domino effect as rear horses crashed into the stopped front ranks.
Then the mud hardened—and erupted upward in jagged stone spikes, piercing horse bellies, impaling fallen knights, creating a forest of death. The spikes held for three seconds before collapsing back to mud, freeing the trapped but leaving them sinking, struggling, waist-deep in the mire.
Finally, the mud crystallized to black glass, trapping knights from the waist down, frozen in place like insects in amber.
Three hundred knights were trapped or dead. Five hundred more made it through the transformation zone, still charging, now enraged.
Godric drew his sword.
The blade slid from its scabbard with a metallic ring that echoed across the battlefield. He settled into a fighting stance for the first time: sword in left hand, wand in right hand, eyes blazing gold.
This was the first time anyone would see him truly dual-wield in battle.
The first knight thrust his lance at Godric's chest. Godric sidestepped with minimal movement—the lance passed within an inch of his ribs. His sword rose and slashed across the lance shaft, splitting the wood. The lance tip fell away. His wand flicked, and a red spell shot out, hitting the knight in the chest and exploding him backward off his horse to crash unconscious thirty feet away.
Three knights converged from different angles. Godric stood at the center of a triangle of death. The first knight's sword came down—Godric's blade rose to parry with a clash of steel and spray of sparks. The second knight's lance came horizontal—Godric ducked beneath it. The third knight's mace came sideways—Godric leaped.
For one impossible moment, he was suspended in mid-air while three weapons passed through the space where he'd been, his cloak billowing around him. He landed and spun like a top with his sword extended, cutting the first knight's saddle straps. The knight fell off his horse. His wand swept out with a wind blast that threw the second knight backward. His sword stabbed forward, piercing the third knight's horse's armor—not the horse itself, just the armor, which shattered. The horse bucked and threw its rider.
All three down in two and a half seconds.
Ten knights surrounded him, attacking from all directions at once. But Godric never stopped moving. His sword parried one blade while his wand blasted another attacker back. He ducked under an axe swing, rolled beneath a pike thrust, came up spinning. His sword cut weapon belts—soldiers' pants fell and they tripped. His wand created walls of force that deflected multiple strikes. He transfigured an enemy's shield to glass and shattered it with a pommel strike. He leaped onto a horse's back, ran along it, jumped off flipping in mid-air, and landed behind another knight.
Every movement flowed into the next. Sword and wand working in perfect synchronization. Each weapon enhancing the other. Magic and steel becoming a single instrument of controlled destruction.
He wasn't trying to kill them all—disarming, disabling, humiliating when possible. Broken arms, not broken necks. Destroyed weapons, not destroyed men.
But there were too many.
A pike caught him in the right shoulder. Blood sprayed. Godric grunted, ripped the pike out, and snapped it with his bare hands before stunning the pike-man with his wand. An axe cut his left arm. More blood. A sword grazed his ribs. He was breathing harder now, sweat mixing with blood and ash.
But still fighting.
Thirty knights pressed in on all sides. Godric was wounded, bleeding, but his eyes blazed brighter with building rage.
He roared: "ENOUGH!"
Slamming both sword and wand into the ground, a golden shockwave rippled outward, throwing all thirty knights backward. Then his wand swept in a circle.
"Serpensortia Omnis!"
Every weapon within thirty feet transformed. Swords became serpents, their blades morphing into scaled bodies and their hilts into striking heads. Pikes became pythons, shafts elongating and rippling with life. Axes became vipers. Lances became cobras, rearing up with hoods spread. Maces became rattlesnakes, their spikes turning into scales.
The battlefield erupted into chaos. Knights dropped their suddenly-living weapons, which struck at them. Screaming. Mass panic. Soldiers running into each other, trampling, fleeing.
Godric stood in the center of the chaos, breathing hard, blood dripping from multiple wounds.
His voice carried magically across the valley: "I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU! You're not my enemies! You're THEIR tools!" He pointed at King Cynric in the distance. "GO HOME! Tell your families you fought at Godstone and LIVED! Tell them the Lion showed MERCY!"
Some soldiers hesitated. Some lowered weapons. Some began backing away.
Then King Cynric's voice, shrill with desperation: "HOLD THE LINE! CRIMSON CIRCLE—END THIS!"
The ten dark wizards in black robes stepped forward, walking over wounded soldiers with wands raised. As they approached, their hoods fell back one by one, revealing their faces: Malachar the leader, Scyld the Binder with chains on his belt, Morwen the Shadowmancer with dead eyes, Theron the blood mage with scarred hands, and six others—each a master of dark magic who had betrayed their own kind.
They spread out in a perfect circle around Godric, thirty feet between each wizard, surrounding him completely.
Malachar's voice was cold. "Formation Alpha. Surround him. Simultaneous attack on my mark."
Each dark wizard nodded. Their wands rose in unison.
"ATTACK!"
Ten spells launched simultaneously from all directions: fire spiraling into dragon shapes, black iron chains, shadow tendrils solidifying from darkness, blood curses razor-sharp and crimson, lightning bolts pure white, necrotic green mist, purple hex runes, flesh-rending invisible force, and a void sphere that absorbed light itself.
All converging on Godric from ten directions at once.
No time to dodge. No time to shield them all.
Godric dropped to one knee and plunged his sword vertically into the ground. He gripped his wand with both hands and aimed it at the sword.
"Scutum Omnidirectional!"
Magic flowed from wand to blade. The sword's runes ignited, acting as a magical amplifier. A sphere of pure force erupted around him—not smooth, but a crystalline structure of constantly shifting geometric patterns, like a spherical stained-glass window made of magic.
The ten spells hit the sphere simultaneously.
The explosion of color and light was blinding. Fire turned the north side orange. Chains darkened the south. Shadow made the east partially transparent. The blood curse painted the west crimson. Lightning crackled across the entire surface. The void sphere warped a section until it nearly broke.
Inside the sphere, Godric's face was illuminated by impossible colors, sweat pouring, teeth gritted, every muscle straining. Blood dripped from his nose. This was taking everything he had.
The sphere cracked. Spider-web fractures spread across its surface with sounds like glass creaking under pressure.
Then it shattered.
The magical explosion threw everyone back. Godric crashed onto his back in the crater, struggling to rise, coughing blood. That had taken everything. The dark wizards stumbled but remained standing, already recovering.
Malachar smiled. "Impressive. But you can't—"
Godric's wand snapped up from the ground. "Serpensortia Omnis!"
Every wand in the Crimson Circle's hands transformed into snakes. Malachar's ebony wand became a black mamba. Scyld's chain-wrapped wand became a constrictor. All ten dark wizards shrieked and dropped the vipers, scrambling for backup wands.
Three seconds of chaos.
That was all Godric needed.
He charged.
Scyld drew a backup wand first, sending magical chains that wrapped around Godric's left arm, his sword arm. "You're bound, Lion!"
Godric didn't struggle. Instead, he reversed his grip on his wand and used it like a dagger, stabbing forward. The wand's tip pierced Scyld's shoulder—not deep, just touching flesh. Magical feedback discharged directly into Scyld's body with crackling blue lightning. Scyld screamed. The chains shattered.
Godric rose, drew his sword, and ran Scyld through. "Never rely solely on magic, Scyld. Sometimes the simplest solution—" he twisted the blade "—is steel."
Scyld fell dead. One down. Nine to go.
Morwen cast illusions next. Godric suddenly saw Eadric burning, Anna with her throat cut, his mother at the stake, all the children he'd failed to save—dozens of accusing dead surrounding him. His sword lowered, his eyes unfocused, lost in the nightmare.
Morwen approached with her wand raised for the kill. "You see? You failed them all. You'll fail everyone. You're not a protector—you're a fraud."
Five feet away. Four. Three. She raised her wand.
Godric's eyes were still closed. "I've lived with these nightmares every night since Godstone." His eyes snapped open, clear and focused. "You can't hurt me with them anymore. I've made peace with my failures."
The illusion shattered. His wand thrust down, and the ground beneath Morwen transfigured into a pit. She fell ten feet and crashed to the bottom. Godric looked down at her.
"Illusions don't change reality," he said quietly. "Transfiguration does."
His sword thrust ended her. Two down. Eight to go.
Theron cut his own palm, blood pooling in his hand. "Sanguis meus, gladius tuus..." Blood rose from his palm defying gravity, forming into twenty crystalline blades that hovered around him before shooting toward Godric.
Godric transfigured his cloak. "Ferrum Vestis!"
The cloth became metal, hardening into steel plate just as the blood-blades struck. They shattered against the metal with sprays of sparks. The cloak returned to cloth, falling naturally. Godric charged. Theron desperately cut himself again. "Sanguis Vincula—"
Godric's sword flashed in a silver arc, cutting through Theron's wrist. The hand—still holding the ritual dagger—separated from the arm and hit the ground. Theron screamed, clutching the stump.
"Can't cast without hands," Godric said quietly, then gave a quick mercy kill through the heart. Three down. Seven to go.
The next six dark wizards fell in rapid succession:
Valdis the Illusionist created fifty copies of himself, all identical. Godric transfigured the ground to ice, creating a perfect mirror surface. Fifty Valdises appeared in reflection, but only one was real. Godric threw his sword—it spun through forty-nine illusions and struck the real Valdis through the throat.
Corvath the Necromancer raised twenty dead soldiers as zombies. Godric, horrified and enraged that the dead were being violated, swept his wand across them. "Floreo Mortis!" All twenty corpses transformed into patches of beautiful wildflowers. Corvath, defenseless, received a disarming hex followed by an execution strike.
Sylvaine the Cursebreaker hit Godric with an unbreakable paralysis curse, purple runes wrapping around him. In a horrifying display of mastery, Godric transfigured his own bones to water, liquefying his entire body to slip out of the magical bindings. He reformed ten feet away, bones solidifying again. Sylvaine's shock lasted just long enough for Godric's sword to find her heart.
Mordak the Fleshwarper transformed himself grotesquely, growing two extra arms and claws. The four-armed monster attacked, and one set of claws raked across Godric's chest, drawing blood. Godric's wand aimed at the extra limbs. "Petra Appendix!" The additional arms turned to stone. Their weight dragged Mordak down until he couldn't stand. Godric's sword cut across his throat.
Kael the Stormcaller raised his wand to darken the sky and called down a massive lightning bolt. Godric raised his runed sword—the blade caught the lightning, glowing white-hot. He pointed the blade at Kael, and the lightning flowed through the sword back at its caster. Kael's skeleton was visible through his skin for a moment before he fell, smoking and dead.
Xerxes the Voidmage created a black sphere that absorbed every spell Godric cast. Unable to use magic effectively, Godric sheathed his wand and gripped his sword with both hands. They dueled blade-to-blade for thirty seconds until Godric, faster and more skilled, disarmed Xerxes and delivered a clean decapitation strike.
Nine down. One to go.
Godric and Malachar faced each other across fifteen feet of scorched earth. Bodies of nine dark wizards scattered around them. Both men wounded, both exhausted, both breathing hard.
"It didn't have to be like this, Godric," Malachar said, gesturing at the bodies. "We could have worked together. Protected our people by being useful to those in power. By surviving."
"That's not protection," Godric replied, shaking his head. "That's collaboration. You hunt your own kind for gold."
"I hunt for survival! And I've survived while nobler fools died. Who's the success here?"
"Define success."
They began circling each other. "Living," Malachar said. "That's all that matters."
"Then you've already lost. Because you're not living. You're just... not dead yet. There's a difference."
Malachar attacked with sudden fury. Pure magic battle—fire against water creating steam explosions, lightning against earth creating mud sprays, cutting curses deflected by Godric's enchanted sword. They traded spells for two minutes straight until a simultaneous pair of blasting curses collided mid-air, the explosion throwing both wizards back.
Both struggled to rise, coughing and bleeding. Malachar changed tactics, drawing a hidden dagger and charging while casting. Combined combat—Malachar stabbing with his dagger while cursing with his wand. Godric parrying with his sword while counter-cursing with his wand. They locked blade-to-blade and wand-to-wand, face-to-face, straining.
"We're... evenly... matched..." Malachar gasped through gritted teeth.
Godric's smile was dark. "Then I'll tip the scales."
He broke the lock, spun away, and sheathed his wand. He grabbed his sword with both hands. Malachar's eyes widened in horror.
"No... you swore... you'd never..."
Godric channeled magic through the sword itself. The blade ignited with fire, runes glowing white-hot. This was the fusion—warrior and wizard becoming one. Malachar fired spells desperately, but Godric walked through them, his flaming sword cutting through each spell as they exploded harmlessly around him.
Malachar's final defense: "Protego Max—!"
Godric's flaming sword slashed down, cutting through the shield like paper. Impossible—shields didn't break that easily. Unless the weapon had both magic and steel perfectly fused.
The sword continued through the shield and into Malachar's chest. The flames extinguished. Just steel now, piercing his heart.
Malachar fell to his knees, Godric's blade still in him. Blood appeared on his lips. "You... proved me... right..." He coughed. "You became... the monster..."
"I know," Godric said, his voice hollow. He pulled the sword free. Malachar fell dead.
Godric stood alone, surrounded by ten corpses in a perfect circle. He was covered in wounds, blood, and ash, but still standing. He looked up at the remaining army—three thousand soldiers left, all staring, all terrified.
King Cynric's voice cracked: "HE'S WOUNDED! EXHAUSTED! ALL FORCES—ATTACK! GOLD TO WHOEVER BRINGS ME HIS HEAD!"
Greed won over fear. Three thousand soldiers roared and charged down into the crater, a tsunami of humanity.
Godric watched them come, and something inside him changed. Something broke. The last restraint, the last bit of mercy—gone. His eyes blazed brighter than ever before.
He raised his wand to the sky and whispered, "Forgive me."
Then he roared: "EX CINERE, VIVERE!"
He plunged his wand into the ground. Magic flooded into the earth, spreading like golden roots, reaching into every particle of ash. The crater trembled. Ash began to swirl, not randomly but purposefully—gathering, compressing, taking shape.
Humanoid figures rose from the ground. Not ghosts. Not spirits. Golems made of compacted ash and earth. Gray, faceless, silent. Seven feet tall.
Two hundred of them. One for each innocent who died at Godstone.
The charging army stopped in horror. "The dead," soldiers whispered. "He raised the dead..."
Bishop Wulfstan screamed from his safe position: "NECROMANCY! ABOMINATION! THEY'RE JUST CONSTRUCTS! DESTROY THEM!"
A brave or foolish soldier charged and swung his sword at an ash-golem. The blade passed through, cutting the golem in half. But the construct reformed immediately, like cutting smoke. The golem grabbed the soldier—didn't hurt him, just held him with impossible strength. Silent. Accusing.
Soldiers tried to push through the wall of ash-golems. The constructs grabbed them, held them, restrained them without harming. But there was no escaping their grasp, and fighting the animated remains of the people you'd murdered was psychological warfare of the cruelest kind.
Some soldiers broke and fled. Others pushed forward with determination.
Godric walked through the chaos, through his ash army, sword in left hand and wand in right. A man who had nothing left to lose.
He raised his wand to the sky. "Ignis Caelum!"
Magic shot upward like a golden beam into the clouds, spreading, infecting, transforming. The white vapor turned solid—gray, heavy, rock. For one impossible second, stone clouds hung in the sky, defying physics.
Then gravity remembered them, and they fell.
Soldiers on the ground saw shadows growing, looked up, and screamed. Dozens of massive stone meteors, each the size of a wagon, plummeted toward earth.
The first impact hit a pike formation. The ground exploded. Soldiers were thrown in all directions. A shockwave rippled outward. A crater formed within the crater. Then the second meteor hit. Then the third. Then dozens, overlapping explosions creating a symphony of destruction.
Eight hundred casualties in thirty seconds.
But Godric didn't stop. He walked forward through the meteor storm, not flinching, not ducking, each step steady and inevitable. Unstoppable.
Soldiers tried to attack him. A pike thrust—his wand transfigured the pike to rope that wrapped around the soldier's own neck, choking him unconscious. A sword swing—his wand created ice that froze the soldier's feet to the ground, then his sword disarmed him. Three soldiers charging together—a wand sweep created a wind blast that threw all three back thirty feet into other soldiers.
An archer fired. Without looking, Godric flicked his wand backward. The arrow transfigured into a flower mid-flight. He caught it, crushed it, kept walking.
A knight on horseback charged from behind. Still not turning, Godric aimed his wand backward. The horse's armor transfigured to flowers. The entire suit fell away, leaving the horse wearing floral barding. The knight was so shocked he fell off.
Ten soldiers dogpiled Godric, and he disappeared under bodies. For a moment, there was hope among the army. Then an explosion of force threw all ten soldiers away. Godric emerged with eyes blazing.
He planted his sword in the ground and raised his wand with both hands. "ENOUGH!"
"Terra Vivens!"
The entire battlefield began shifting. The ground beneath two hundred soldiers turned to mud—they sank, struggling. Three seconds later, the mud froze to ice—soldiers slipping, falling, crashing. Three more seconds and the ice became fire—soldiers jumping, screaming. Then stone spikes erupting randomly—soldiers dodging desperately, some impaled. Then quicksand—weapons and armor dragging men down. Finally, everything crystallized to black glass, trapping hundreds of soldiers from the waist down like insects in amber.
The battlefield itself had become alive, constantly transforming. Solid to mud to ice to fire to spikes to quicksand to glass, cycling every thirty seconds. Soldiers couldn't find stable footing, couldn't coordinate attacks, couldn't even stand.
Godric's voice, amplified magically, echoed across the valley: "LOOK AT YOUR KING! SAFE IN THE REAR! SURROUNDED BY GUARDS! WHILE YOU DIE FOR HIS GREED!"
Every soldier heard it crystal clear. Everyone looked at King Cynric on his white horse, far from danger, while they bled and died.
"I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU! YOU'RE NOT MY ENEMIES! GO HOME! TELL YOUR FAMILIES YOU FOUGHT AT GODSTONE AND SURVIVED! TELL THEM THE LION SHOWED MERCY!"
Five hundred soldiers broke ranks and fled. Five hundred more hesitated, uncertain. But fifteen hundred remained, faces hard with determination—fanatics, zealots, or simply men too loyal to abandon their posts.
An officer raised his sword: "FOR KING AND COUNTRY! KILL THE DEMON!"
They charged.
Godric's expression hardened. "So be it."
What followed was no longer battle—it was systematic dismantling. Godric raised his wand and fifty dead soldiers transfigured into crude stone warriors that stood and fought for him—not necromancy, just transfiguration, but still deeply disturbing. Every enemy weapon transformed: swords became serpents that bit their wielders, shields became ice that froze hands, armor became thorns that cut the wearer's skin, bows became eels that shocked archers.
He transfigured ground into quicksand beneath charging knights. He turned soldiers' armor burning hot. He created walls that trapped entire formations. He paralyzed three hundred men with a single sweeping spell.
Of the fifteen hundred who stayed to fight, three hundred died, five hundred were wounded, and seven hundred eventually broke and fled.
Godric stood alone in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by unconscious bodies, wounded soldiers, trapped men, ash golems standing guard, stone warriors motionless, craters from meteors, scattered weapons, and so much blood and ash.
He'd won.
But victory felt like defeat.
He fell to one knee, sword clattering to the ground, wand falling from his trembling hand. He was done—exhausted beyond measure, wounded in a dozen places, bleeding, barely conscious.
But one group remained. King Cynric's elite guard—fifty knights in perfect formation, creating a shield wall around their king.
Godric struggled to rise, using his sword as a crutch, pushing himself up with every movement agony. But he rose. And he walked toward the king, each step a battle, limping and trailing blood, but moving forward.
The elite guard waited in their shield wall. Their captain, a grizzled veteran named Edmund with a scarred face and gray beard, stepped forward.
"Stand down, sorcerer," Edmund called out. "You've won. The army is broken. Let us take our king and go."
"No," Godric replied, his voice hoarse.
"We are sworn to protect him. We will die before we let you pass."
"I know. And I respect that. True loyalty, even to an unworthy master, is rare." Godric sheathed his wand and drew his sword with both hands. "So I'll honor you with steel. No magic. Blade against blade. As warriors."
Edmund was surprised, then nodded with grim respect. "As warriors. May the best man live."
He signaled his men. The shield wall opened and fifty knights fanned out, encircling Godric.
What followed was pure medieval swordplay—brutal, efficient, and beautiful in its deadly simplicity.
The first knight charged with an overhead chop. Godric sidestepped with minimal movement, letting the blade pass within an inch, then struck the knight's temple with his sword's pommel. The knight dropped unconscious.