Okay. Actually the first thing I wrote, just to see if I could do it, was a chapter with a sorcerous battle. It was far too long for this, but I've written the battle down to 1000 words.
Amy, you and I have different ideas about power moments.
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Stripped of their disguises, Cott and his two witch-acolytes were unnaturally, impossibly old.
"What are you doing here?" Melayne demanded.
Cott threw lightning at her. She caught it and flicked its Power back. Cott's staff splintered, sparked, and burned to ash.
"Run!" he shouted.
Melayne gestured. The witches' feet sprouted roots into the ground.
"Leave while you can, plowgirl!" Cott snarled, hurling a spell behind Melayne.
It was a Summoning across worlds. Melayne dropped, shielding and rolling to face the threat. She threw Barricade spells on the witches to prevent another Summoning.
Where does Cott get Power to Summon across worlds?
Cott's beast was part ape, part tiger, part boar, seven feet of tusk and claw. Its blast of Elemental Fire just missed her.
Fire? It must draw it from its own world. Melayne tried Stunning the creature. It threw more Fire, knocking her back, fraying her shields. Spells won't stop it.
Melayne's blast of Earth could have pulverized a millstone. The creature lurched and recovered, attacking as Melayne rolled, grazing her and unravelling her shields.
Trees exploded behind her. She anchored rebuilt shields in the ground, making a sharp edge toward the beast.
Its next blast broke on the edge, spattering the witches. They caught fire and screamed, helpless under Melayne's Barricade. She extinguished them.
Sensing her immobility, the creature advanced. Melayne aimed a huge blast of Earth under its heart. It staggered and she drove a spell into the ground beneath it.
The beast blasted the ground anchoring her shields.
Ropes of earth wound up around its feet and legs. It struggled and howled as they stretched up its body.
Melayne freed her shield and rolled as a blast ripped a smoking furrow behind her. She shaped Fire and Earth, hurling it to dazzle the beast's Elemental senses. Bewildered, it slapped and tore at the spell.
It still had eyes. Melayne sorceled a curtain of rippling light, jumping away as the beast obliterated it.
Trees cracked and boomed behind her.
Her next spells commanded air. Winds howled, circling the beast, walling it in a maelstrom of soil, debris, and Power. It clawed the winds, then tried to blast free. The blast disintegrated, spraying like sleet from the whirlwind.
The witches screamed. Their injury wasn't flame; it would wait. The beast was gathering more Power.
Melayne knelt in the furrow, reinforced her shields and sent more cords of earth around the creature.
Its next blast spattered out around the whirlwind, destroying Melayne's shields and igniting Cott's trio.
Melayne had no time to help them them. She shaped new shields. With Power she deepened the furrow.
The third blast was stronger. The witches went silent. More trees exploded, spreading thick, sticky pine smoke.
Melayne dug deeper, piling the dirt in front of her. The fourth blast baked it hard. The fifth broke it.
Melayne was tiring. The beast was getting stronger.
How long can it keep going?
The sixth blast made the whirlwind glow red hot. Trees popped in a distant drumroll, punctuated by the seventh blast, which pulverized the baked soil, kicking up dust.
The eighth blast came before it settled.
Backblasts hammered Melayne's shields. She repaired them with Earth and with Fire spilled from the attacks.
The beast went quiet. Its blasts got stronger. The whirlwind glowed bright red with each attack, writhing as the creature flailed. Trees burst in the distance.
Melayne's earthen ropes held.
The blasts stopped. Melayne looked up from her shieldwork. The beast's Fire increased. She dug deeper.
A jet of Elemental Fire tore out from the maelstrom. Most of its Fire was lost to the whirlwind. What broke through was devastating.
The beam swept the landscape, dropping to blast earth and stumps, rising to shatter distant trees. The whirlwind glowed orange, heated by the passage of Power.
Melayne burrowed sideways. The strongest shields she ever shaped bent under sidespill off the scattered waste of the beast's Power.
And the ground was heating--fast. Melayne might survive the direct attack and still bake alive.
With nothing left to work with, she looked down, deep in the earth. She found Elemental Water, enough maybe to cool, or--
She took all she could. With it she mustered tangible water from the depths. Up it flowed, cracking baked soil, erupting as steam, carrying heat into the whirlwind at Melayne's command.
The creature shrieked. Its jet of Fire wobbled down to gouge earth, up to trace ropes and ribbons of color on the daylight sky.
How can anything handle such Power?
The maelstrom outshone the sun. Melayne shut her eyes and pressed her face in the earth. The searing blue flooded her sight anyway.
Then the world seemed to shatter, concussing bone and flesh, leaving Melayne stunned, deaf, and blind.
Is it over?
The whirlwind held only her spells. She let it drop.
Spells restored her sight and hearing. Her balance returned and she stood up, staggering, exhausted.
Splintered bones radiated from a pile of baked, broken earth.
The witches would keep their secrets. Their only remains were the roots Melayne had sprouted from their feet. I'll meet them in my nightmares.
Acres of ravaged pines smouldered beneath the cloudless sky. Distant flames fed on fresh, standing wood, threatening whole square miles. Melayne couldn't chase down and extinguish it all.
But this world had a little Elemental Water, more useful now than all the Earth and Fire of the battle. She knelt in the burnt-sweet, sticky smoke. Leaning on her fists, she reached deep underground for the Power of Water.
Drawing it up slowly, Melayne shaped a lacy spell that rose and spiralled out as she wove it.
She triggered it all at once. It mustered tangible water, from streams and ponds, up from the ground and from faraway air. Clouds formed, swelled with vapor, and opened.
Rain came, cold, heavy, drowning fires, clearing the smoke, sizzling on the ruined ground.
Melayne stood and soothed her muscles. She had just lost another day.
