As the body of Zhi was thrown around like a ragdoll, Wei suddenly realised he was screaming alongside his two classmates. He couldn't move. This couldn't be happening. But even above the cries of terror another sound came - ringing out like a gong. A woman's voice, powerful and clear.

  “[Onwards, and Fear No Foe]!”

  And suddenly he was off running. They all were. All save Xiaoling. And Wei found himself picking his sister up bodily as he hurtled into the mists in the direction of the voice.

  Huiwen was sobbing hysterically as she ran, the sound only broken as she sucked down great gasps of air. Until it cut off entirely with a sickening crunch and a wet thud.

  Wei felt a dampness on his face that was more than the mist, and realised he was crying as he ran at full pelt, sister in his arms.

  He almost tripped over a root that moved beneath his foot but it only made him run faster as another spike of terror shot through him.

  Within moments he burst out into a larger depression in the ground - a place where the mist gathered above his head, devoid of life besides himself and his sister until Jie stumbled over the lip and down into the bowl of earth with them.

  Glancing around in their panic, the two searched for a path to safety, turning frantically as the mists swirled and voices echoed out.

  “-sodding elementals everyw-”

  “-ound one here. Dead. T-”

  “-ira see which way they went. Lio - hurry up.”

  “It’s not going to go any faster with y-”

  There was a pattern in the swirling of the mists, Wei realised, as his head span and tracked a movement.

  “Jie - watch out!”

  Shouts came from the disembodied voices at the same time as Wei’s warning, and Jie fell back as a translucent figure rippled out of the mists above to slash him.

  Red lines opened up on his head and blossoms of scarlet began to soak through his clothes as invisible claws raked down his body, but Jie survived the initial attack, bringing his hands up to his face and then staring at the blood in horror.

  A more solid, horrific yet familiar figure appeared out of the fog behind the student and Wei screamed out another warning.

  The bear-boar-tree creature lunged, but as it did so another shape came flying out of the mist and met it head on.

  It was shining silver. Like a comet, appearing in the sky in a flash of light, bringing light and hope in the darkest night. With a crash like thunder it struck the monstrous figure and sent both of them hurtling out of view.

  The beautiful voice of a celestial chorus rang out once more as it disappeared into the white blankness.

  “[To Me, My Friends].”

  Scattered voices in the mist suddenly sounded out with purpose, getting closer, but as Wei dragged Xiaoling towards Jie and the student collapsed to the ground, other insubstantial ripples darted out of the fog.

  Wei was barely a few steps from his friend as the figures descended on him, talons of air lancing into the streams of blood that were flowing and digging the channels deeper.

  The body of Jie was flensed in less than a second.

  What was left as Wei stumbled to a halt and fell back in horror was little more than a pile of meat, and a cloud of red droplets hanging in the air, which gave form to the things that had killed his friend.

  Spirits of air. Vengeful ghosts.

  “Yuān Guǐ.”

  Wei fell to the ground, shielding Xiaoling. Flecks of blood rained down around them but the majority was caught up by the whirling forms of the creatures - a separate pink mist growing below the white-grey mass above.

  For a few seconds Wei could see humanoid torsos with the cat-like faces, a spinning whirlwind of red-laced death where their legs would be. Then, as the spirits began to focus in his direction, another voice echoed out of the fog, and with it, the burning fury of the sun.

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  {Radian Solarius Ardentum Expurgo}!

  Golden fire washed through the air, evaporating the mist and the spirits of the air alike.

  A pale afternoon sky looked down from far above. Overcast, mostly obscured by afterimages of the fire and the colossal pine trees that rose up around him, but revealed nevertheless as, for a few precious moments, the mist disappeared.

  Something else also disappeared, and Wei realised the creatures had been shrieking at a volume so high that he’d barely been able to register it.

  With the distraction gone, he heard the voices more clearly.

  Someone exhaled loudly.

  “Fuck me that was a lot of mana.”

  A voice that was half squawk responded.

  “Take a mana potion then, but I’m running low.”

  The sounds of fighting began to drift from further out where the mist still gathered, and already they were seeping back.

  “Quit whining and get moving magic man.”

  “Kira’s marker won’t stay much longer.”

  Clanking and heavy footfalls followed, and as his eyes adjusted to the greater visibility and he blinked away the last few spots from the burning wave, Wei watched a squat figure crest over the lip of the dell. It turned to call back as it reached that point.

  “I’ve got two survivors here. Someone check them out whilst I go after Kira. Where’s Nyssara?”

  Wei blinked. It sounded like Shrek.

  Another voice answer, this one more refined.

  “Someone has to focus on the actual quest, if there are even any left alive. Hurry up and get Kira. We can’t hold them off forever.”

  There were a series of explosions and the short figure began to jog through the dell. He locked eyes with Wei as he passed.

  “Hold on young ‘un, help’s on its way.”

  Wei didn’t respond.

  He couldn’t make his body do what he wanted it to.

  In his mind's eye all he could see was Jie being torn to shreds, over and over. The bones in the rocks should have been a warning.

  As he lay, curled protectively around his sister, three more figures appeared over the lip of the wide depression he was hidden in, backing up slowly, fighting something to the rear.

  They were all of a similar size, but that was where the similarities stopped.

  One appeared to be a male in his prime, robed, hands lifting every few seconds to fire out a jolt of fire or lightning.

  Another was a woman with a longbow, sending arrows off at whatever they were fighting at an unbelievable pace.

  The last was strangest of all. It was almost humanoid, wearing some odd robe-armour mix, but with feathers covering its arms and a bird’s head, and a great tail that it kept swishing as it walked backwards throwing glass vials.

  A… peacock-person?

  As they retreated into the dell the archer spared a glance for Wei and nodded the bird-person his way.

  “Dorric, get them up. We need to keep moving.”

  Tossing a final orb of glass, the creature spun with a whirling of green feathers that distracted Wei from reliving Jie’s death for a moment and, with one bound, glided down to crouch over Wei and his sister. A peacock’s head, but on a human’s scale, tilted to one side, before its break opened to ask in perfectly intelligible language.

  “Are yoo injured?”

  He tried to answer, he really did, but the images of his classmates' deaths…and the absurdity of a bird…

  “Try this.” The peacock-man reached into a satchel at his side and pulled out a vial with a pale blue-green liquid inside. He uncorked it with an audible pop. “Soothing tahnic.”

  Soothing tonic?

  Hands that were mostly feathers poured the contents down Wei’s throat and suddenly all his troubles dropped away.

  “Let’s try again. Yoo injured?”

  Wei shook his head as the potion took effect. It was like he was being bathed in a spring breeze.

  “Are there others of you alife?”

  A twinge pulled at his newfound calm. He shook his head.

  At this news, the peacock-man gave a piercing cry and the group began to fall back. He pointed to the slope up into the mists.

  “We go high. Saefa.”

  Was that where we came from?

  They’d been turned around a bit in their fall down the incline, but Wei was certain that’s where they’d been - was it only minutes before?

  There was no time to think on it as shapes descended on them from all sides.

  More ripples in the air, which the robed man sent sheets of fire or ice at. Charging mounds of earth and vines, which the archer sent arrow after arrow into.

  The peacock person - Dorric - shoved Wei, hard, but not unkindly.

  “Run!”

  When Wei hesitated, still crouching over his sister, the bird-man pulled another vial from his satchel and threw it at a crawling mound of dirt and ice.

  “Go. I’ll get her.”

  So saying, the creature reached down and threw Xiaoling over his shoulder. Wei began scrambling towards the incline.

  As he reached it, the others were being pushed back by the sheer numbers and ferocity of the attack.

  “Sodding elementals.” The mage cursed. “Kira, Borgrim. Where are you?”

  “Coming manling. Don’t shrivel yer balls.”

  Two more of the group joined the fight as the squat Shrek-sounding one and the silver-clad warrior burst into the clearing.

  The dwarf - it couldn’t be anything else, lowered his head and pulled a shield in front of him as his legs pumped, the mace in his other hand trailing behind.

  “[Ram’s Charge], [Power Strike]!”

  A body two-thirds Wei’s height but surely twice his weight or more practically flew across the dell and slammed into a tree-creature that was lashing out at the archer. The sound when the two collided made Wei’s ears ring, and as the tree creature staggered backwards, the dwarf’s mace came round in an irresistible arc and crunched down through its head into the middle of its body.

  It didn’t move after that, though half a dozen more were loping forward with ungainly strides.

  The silver-clad warrior was a woman, Wei realised, and she sprinted forwards - past Dorric carrying Xiaoling to the slope up - and went to the aid of the beleaguered mage.

  She swung out with a great broadsword and wherever she hit a flash of golden light erupted and the monstrous creatures shrieked.

  A voice rang out from her helmet, and Wei realised this was the one he’d first heard. She issued orders and the others listened.

  “Up the hill, now. All of you. I still have a minute left on my Avatar. We don’t want to be down here when it runs out.”

  Without a second’s hesitation, the rest of the group began running and Wei found himself being overtaken by the men and women. Even the mage, puffing and red-faced, started to pass by him.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Brace yerself lad. Roll when you land.”

  Then Wei was flying through the air, the figures of the six other people growing smaller in his vision as he rose up to the level of some of the giant pine tree branches. Alone, at the foot of the steep hill, the silver-clad warrior woman was holding off what must have been twenty or thirty monstrous forms made of rock and roots and insubstantial air and mud, sword glowing bright and a barrier of gold appearing to shield her as the creatures swung.

  In those moments, he saw something bright and glowing as a creature that seemed made of lava rolled over into the dell and Wei felt his heart leap in fear for the woman, though his worry switched to himself as he heard the dwarf’s gruff voice echoing up from below.

  “Opps. Mighta tossed him a bit hard.”

  Hi all! Welcome to my book, Miscast Heroes.

  I'm uploading a few chapters to start with and then will upload one a day after.

  The full first book is available on Patreon - and I greatly appreciate anyone who chooses to support me there.

  Hope you enjoy it - please leave comments below!