The whip caught the bony hand as he unleashed his fireball. The flame caught the whip and traveled its length in a second, incinerating it as it found Brodon's hand. Though the power was reduced due to the reimancer splitting his focus between the two men, and further reduced with its energy partially spent on the whip's length, it still left Brodon's hand and forearm charred and smoking. He collapsed to his knees, teeth grinding in pain as he inched his way towards the remaining canteens.
The assistant took his fireball in the side as he rolled, his shield absorbing most of it, but a second orb was hindered only by flesh and it became hard to tell where burnt clothes ended and burnt flesh began. He screamed in pain as the reimancer laughed.
He spun suddenly and faced a direction empty of anyone and launched another fireball, cursing his imagined targets' quick feet. "You'll ALL pay for trying to keep me from her." Brodon noticed him twitching as he raised his arms again, the sleeves of his robe on fire now, his hair withering in a cloud of smoke. He hoped the madman's hallucinations persisted as he took advantage of his distraction to locate the remaining canteens by the body of the assistant's dead strider.
There were still four of them looped on the yvas. Extras to guard against dehydration while fighting a fire. Brodon tore one loose and poured some of it over his hand and arm. relishing the relief from the pain. He poured the rest over the assistant's burns, commenting on the luck of having brought so many canteens.
"He's almost...burned himself out...overgiving," the assistant gasped, the pain still intense, "If we can just...last a...little...longer"
There was a burst of heat as another fireball roared over the body of the dead horse while the reimancer cursed it's interference. Brodon dared a look and nearly quailed at the monstrous visage the reimancer presented. Eyes burst, the sockets aflame. Shimmering heat, occasionally igniting, where his hair would have been. His robe, tattered and burning, fire leaking out of rents in his torso, his open mouth glowing red, the heat making his face shimmer.
"I DON'T NEED TO SEE YOU, FOOLS! I WILL BRING CLOUD FIRE DOWN FROM THE SKY!" The man shrieked in a frenzy of overgiving hate. He thrust his arms up in the air and Brodon suddenly knew what to do. There were only seconds. He threw the half empty canteen at the mans feet, splashing water on the grassy turf. He grabbed a second canteen and nearly tore the cap off, cocking his arm to throw, but hesitating, trusting his instinct.
The man cocked his elbows as he prepared to launch his arms up again and Brodon threw the canteen overhand into the air above the man. It tumbled in the air as it carried, spilling an arc of water into the air over the raging man's head.
The powerful lightning strike found its circuit - water pooled on the ground, water spilling in the air, and a human body full of water, with raised arms, in between. Brodon pitched headlong onto the ground as the deafening flash seared the figure in place in a blinding white inferno. The sizzling pillar of incandescence danced with the source of its creation for three full seconds, leaving a bubbling heap of greasy bones that could have once been any kind of animal, but was unrecognizable now, save for the skull.
Brodon took the last two canteens, and poured them over the assistant and himself. He tossed the empty vessels aside and lifted the man in his arms. "Grit your teeth and imagine you're cutting that bastard's heart out, it will help you focus on something besides the pain. If you HAVE to scream, DON'T BREATHE BACK IN UNTIL WE'RE THROUGH" he shouted over the roar of the flames and he charged as best he could into the spot where the firewall had last closed.