Samual by Greg Curtis Page A

their sudden unexpected losses, stopped them before they could lose the rest. Obviously he could see something through their glowing red eyes. Enough at least to see the problem and form a plan.
     
    Realising that his army was facing a wizard, and probably guessing he was using some form of scything spell, the golem master reasoned that Sam wouldn't be able to get all of them if they came in small groups of three or four each, from all directions at once. He was right too. The scythe spell couldn't handle such an attack very well. But then Sam had expected that the rats would learn from their mistakes. It was just a pity he hadn't got more of them before they'd changed tactics. The sword still had at least half of the fire magic spell raging within it.
     
    As he felt the rats circling the clearing, gathering into their groups and preparing for the order to attack Sam sheathed the greatsword and raised his battle-axe high above his head. Did the rat master guess his intentions? Sam didn't know. But what he did know was that it was already too late as he saw the first of the rats entering the clearing and knew it was time. Even before the rats had been given the order to attack, he released all of the fire magic that he'd stored in the axe in a single glorious strike, and watched with satisfaction as a fire storm appeared somewhere over his head.
     
    A spinning, screaming ball of fire, it spat out bolts of liquid fire in every direction, like a thousand insane archers with flaming arrows. Yet each of those bolts found its way unerringly to its target and at least fifty more rats went up in flames in the forest in a single stroke. Even Sam was impressed by the potency of the enchantment. Never before had he seen the spell work so effectively. His enemy no doubt wasn't so pleased.
     
    A hundred and fifty odd golems destroyed in only a matter of moments by a single human. All that work and magic that had gone into making them; lost. Sam could almost hear the scream of rage that came from the rats' master so far away, and he tried not to smile too much. At least not yet. The battle was far from over.
     
    Then his enemy showed his inexperience in battle. Angered beyond reason the master brought out all his remaining rats, at least another three or four hundred and tried a mass attack. He was trying to overload the power of the fireball spell with sheer numbers. He needn't have worried about it. Sam had used every last ounce of fire magic in the axe in that one blast. He'd had to to kill so many steel rats at once from such a distance. But he wasn't worried. Not by the golems anyway. Not when he'd already seen the results of his opening attacks and felt his new found power.
     
    Even as he watched the rats streaming towards him like a sprawling river of steel teeth, red eyes and claws, Sam sheathed his battle-axe beside his sword, and raised his arms above his head instead. It was time to see if the fire ring could do as much damage as his studies had told him it could. Once five thousand or more years ago before the Dragon Wars, fire rings had been considered among the most powerful of all a wizard's attacks. But the devastating losses of people from it and other such magics had been terrible. According to some it was these very magic shapes that had helped bring the Dragon to power and ultimately nearly destroyed the world.
     
    The Dragon Wars had brought the ancient world to an end. Empires and realms had been shattered. Lands had been destroyed.  According to some even the ancients themselves had been broken. Because once they had been one people. After the wars they had evolved into many different races. All that was left of those ancient times were scraps of knowledge, legends and ancient artefacts. The fire ring was one of those scraps of ancient knowledge that had survived. One he had studied carefully.
     
    Properly used it was supposed to be able to destroy an army. Improperly used of course, it would destroy him.