“Yes, it can. For it is not man doing that,” Silence stated, and I again turned to her to see her gaze no longer to the battle but it was looking beyond me. “It is magic.”

I twisted my neck and felt my eyes narrow, for along the crest of the hill, some ways away, but still visible, was a line of sorcerers.

I knew their bent for they were in full chant, precisely placed, arms raised, heads tipped back, calling on their magic to aid the villains’ operation.

And there had to be fifty of them.

Further, in the confusion below, our people had not noticed them.

I turned back to Silence, and the instant I did, she proclaimed, “Your wind. My fire.”

My wind?

Her…fire?

I had no chance to ask after this.

She’d dug her heels in her mount and started charging toward the sorcerers.

Without thinking, I followed her, and as I did, as an automatic precaution, I called upon my magic, feeling it gather in the small of my back, a tingle, an itch, a burning.

Silence was bent over the neck of her horse, but as we grew closer to the line of sorcerers, she sat back, raised both hands, palms open but fingers slightly curled…

And to my amazement, in them formed two balls of fire.

She hurled them both toward the first sorcerer.

His robes caught fire, and on a shriek, he plummeted out of the line, snaking this way and that before throwing himself to the ground and rolling.

By the gods.

Silence had command of fire!

She turned her head and looked down her body at me, shouting, “You!”

Now I knew what she meant by “my wind.”

I had something to command too.

And in this dire time, I had to command it.

I sat up, brought my hands crossed before me at my chest, then flung them out to my sides.

The next sorcerer in line whirled up into the air in a twirl of damp leaves as if caught in a wind funnel.

I then swung one of my arms to the right and he went flying through the forest.

“I did it!” I cried with excitement.

Silence did not share in my excitement.

She was focused.

Thus, the next wizard took Silence’s fire.

I needed to focus as well.

I did this and the next I sent careening into a tree.

More fire from Silence, this time, one of her projectiles hit the next wizard in line and another projectile, the one after.

The skin all over my body raging but my breath coming calm and easy, I caught the next three up in a mighty gale and sent them soaring over the naked treetops, trailing dead leaves in their wake.

At this juncture, the line of conjurors had noted our attack, thus they started to break formation and scatter.