The world suddenly grew fuzzy, full of a misty, drizzling rain. My limb felt heavy as I aimed Pewpew, but I hesitated before unleashing the ring again. I was still waiting for backlash to hit. If I used another blast, it would need to be my last for a while, and I would still pay for it later.
I didn’t think I had much of a choice, though. Ven had almost reached me again, Jialji seemed to be nearly finished reloading, and I had no idea where the third bounty hunter, Heather, was hiding. She was probably about to kill me too.
If I lived through this situation, I was never, ever going to announce myself to enemies ever again.
With a grimace, I triggered a scatter beam at Jialji, and grunted in muted frustration. The attack had hit a glowing, crimson wall that suddenly flared to life. “I can’t believe this,” I muttered.
At that moment, the last bounty hunter stepped from behind a tree. She was busy manipulating a crossbow, spanning and loading it inhumanly quickly. As she began to raise the weapon, her eyes locked on mine.
Rotting creation, I mentally swore.
I only had one option now, my last, best chance to survive this fight. When I’d first met Enheduanna, she’d told me I had a natural ability called “adomopathy.” She’d explained that among other things, this meant I could learn to fight unnaturally quickly. I’d experienced the ability noticeably flaring up a few times the first year I was ‘Bonded, and I’d slowly learned to control it over time.
The benefit was that I could be hyper aware, super adaptable, and think faster than I had any right to. I could learn new ways to fight in seconds. The downside was that it tired me out, and I could only use it once a day for a few minutes. If I didn’t use it now, though, I’d probably never get another chance.
I activated my adomopathy, and suddenly everything became clear. Time stayed the same, I just knew what was happening, the world around me made sense to me. Heather’s crossbow bolt went wide as I spun to one side, letting my feet touch the surface of the slow-moving stream. I blasted toward Ven, knowing it was the right thing to do. Trying to fly away or escape would probably result in my death. I could move and dodge a lot more precisely on land, or on water. It was time to attack.
My surroundings were all in hyper focus now. I was aware of where each enemy was, and what they were doing. After my experience with this active form of adomopathy, I knew that each second was precious. When I consciously used the ability, the first few moments were most powerful.
I stabbed at Ven as I ducked. A crackling crossbow bolt shot over my head. With the help of my Vibration power, I could hear the bounty hunter cocking her crossbow behind me. Standing on the water in the middle of the stream had proven lucky. The woman with the crossbow had changed a lot from when I’d met her in Berber—there was a good chance she was orb-Bonded now, and Jialji too. As long as they kept using conventional ranged weapons, I’d take the tradeoff of being out in the open.
A sudden spinning blade of violet energy came from Jialji, thrown as she manipulated her pistol. The attack had been unexpected, but I’d already reacted long before it reached me. I jumped up into a spin, stabbing at Ven, keeping him off balance. The energy wave harmlessly passed beneath me.
So much for conventional weapons, I thought.
After I landed, I darted to the side, running on water, and my calculated movement let me dodge a wild swing by Ven and another shot from his wife. The big man was still up to his waist in the water and I took advantage of it.
Regardless of how strong someone is, wading around in water will slow movement and make footing tricky. I reversed my grip on Eneus and began savagely stabbing downward, channeling my vib-blade power the entire time. Ven tried a wide slashing attack at me, but I hopped forward with a kick, precisely hitting the man’s hand, making myself even heavier than my full weight for a second. I only kept all that weight for a split second, just long enough to deliver stopping force, and I lowered my weight again.
The last of Ven’s momentum threw me back, and I skidded on top of the water like it was ice. My enhanced hearing let me know that Heather had finished loading her crossbow. I turned and threw Eneus, keeping hold of the weapon’s sash even as the spear left my hand. The backlash of using Pewpew hit me as I attacked, and I gritted my teeth in agony. If not for all my training, even floating time and adomopathy would not have saved me. A single mistake in this fight would be lethal.
I needed to win or I was going to die. This time if I went down, I’d stay dead, too. I had to admit that deep down I hadn’t been expecting such a dangerous battle. Arrogance.
Heather cursed, and somehow dodged. She’s rotting fast, I thought. A million possibilities shot through my mind, and I rejected almost all of them. Most of the other tools I had, like an enchanted shield bracelet on my left arm, were meant for conventional fighting. They would all be useless against these three.
With a jerk of my hand, Eneus returned to me. My chest pumped, my body strong, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever. I wasn’t making any ground in this fight, just losing energy and focus—I would need to take a risk. My ability let me know that if I didn’t, my death would almost be a sure thing.
With a hiss, I closed with Ven again, stabbing downward over and over. “Hazard! Hazard!” I screamed. Jialji got another shot off with her pistol while I fought, but I managed to evade it. She didn’t throw another energy blade at me because I’d positioned myself well. If she missed with more energy attacks, she’d hit her husband.
Ven was strong, and much more skilled than the last time I’d fought him, but the water slowed him and I could tell he relied too much on his armor. When I finally feinted, managing a solid strike, I put as much Vibration power into my weapon as I could handle, and the large, razor-sharp blade slid past Ven’s thick armor like it wasn’t even there.
The wound was mortal, right into the lungs so the big man couldn’t even manage a proper gasp. His wide, surprised eyes stared up at mine, mustache twitching. Behind me, Heather cried out, and I heard her crossbow twang. This was my gamble, what my adomopathy had revealed would be my best chance to survive. There was a lot of risk. If Heather hit my head, I was going to die. There was no way I could dodge—I had committed. If I hadn’t taken out one of my enemies quickly, my odds of survival had been grim.
Luckily, Heather’s crossbow bolt hit my shoulder instead, pinging off, the angle wrong to penetrate at all or even knock me back. The tempo of the battle had just changed. It was too early to celebrate yet, but I nodded.
I withdrew Eneus from my foe, using Flight to steady myself. He weakly swung with his sword, but I knocked it away, and sunk my spear blade right through the grating of his helm, into his face. As he sank beneath the water of the stream I thought, One down.
Heather incoherently screamed as I turned, still aiming her crossbow at me, pulling the trigger over and over again. “Hazard!” I thundered. I sprang off the water, adjusting my weight and Flight power to close with her in a flash. She cried out, drawing her rapier, but she should have done that earlier. I’d learned my mistake. This was not a duel, it was a battle, and I was not concerned with honor. My enemy’s mistakes were good luck for me.
With amazing speed and precision, she still managed to deftly deflect Eneus to one side with her forearm, causing the blade to go wide. My hand clamped on the woman’s sword hand, preventing her from drawing her weapon, and I shoved her backward, evading another shot from Jialji. Then, as Heather was off balance, I kicked her feet out from under her. On her back, tangled in bushes, her sword still sheathed, even her unnatural speed couldn’t save her. She flung a hand out, managing a magic attack, a cloud of green that shot out at me. I stepped to one side, evading the attack, and skewered her with Eneus.
To be safe, I stepped on her sword arm and stabbed down a few more times as I turned to face Jialji, our eyes locking. The woman must have known she wouldn’t have time to reload her pistol. She dropped it, and drew a short sword.
I shot forward.
Underestimating this woman had almost killed me, and I was not going to make the same mistake again. Jialji was smart, and capable. I would respect her as a serious opponent.
Eneus flicked out, the spear’s deadly blade headed for Jialji’s throat, but a crimson shield the size of a dinner plate blocked the attack. Eneus, charged with Vibration power, was stopped cold, but shattered the energy.
Jialji’s eyes widened in surprise, but she still acted quickly. Her sword swung at me, glowing crimson, and her other hand buzzed forward, throwing another blade of energy at me. I spun up into the air, avoiding both attacks, and stabbed downward three times before landing again. Jialji had created glowing shields to block each attack, but Eneus had shattered all of them. Through the clarity of my adomopathy, I knew she was tiring.
Our battle continued this way for a few, endless moments. Flight had made me as comfortable in the air as on the ground, and while my power was not as versatile as Jialji’s, I was still stronger. She put up a great fight, though. If this dangerous woman and her sister-wife Heather had been able to close with me earlier, I would likely not still be breathing.
I attacked yet again, breaking another shield of energy, and Jialji suddenly stumbled back. With a grunt of effort, I danced to the side and thrusted at an angle to avoid another energy blade, but it hadn’t been necessary. Eneus’ blade sunk up to the haft in my enemy’s shoulder.
Floating time let me act quickly, surprise not slowing me. I stepped forward and elbowed Jialji in the jaw with all of my enhanced strength. I heard her bone crack and felt it even through my armor.
The woman fell backward, and her head hit a tree on the way down. I stared down at her. She was still conscious, but barely. I thought about killing her quickly, but frowned. This moment had played through my mind many times over the last few years.
With a thought, I dismissed floating time, thinking about the past for a while, and my eyes tightened. I slammed Eneus down, using just enough force to maim, not kill. The savage strike caused my enemy to sputter, her hands going for her damaged leg. A more fitting end for my enemy had come to mind, and now she couldn’t run away.
I stepped to one side, using a little Vib-energy blade from a finger to cut down a young tree and strip its branches. Then I sharpened the fat side to a nasty point.
My adomopathy was still active, using all of my senses to track the world around me, so I was aware when Jialji slightly levered herself up to watch me. When I turned, she nodded at the crude spear I’d made. “Is that for me?”
“Yes.”
She sighed, and I noticed little signs in how she moved, letting me know I’d hit something important in her body. Her wounds gushed blood. “You have killed my entire family, you know that?”
“Yes.” My blood felt like ice in my veins.
“I am probably in shock, and currently very tired. The reality that everyone I truly care about is dead has not really set in yet. You know, more than anything, I wish we’d killed you on the road in the past.” She paused. “It was a job. I am still not sorry.”
“Yes,” I replied again, approaching slowly.
She held up a hand, and I tensed as she flicked it toward me, but no energy blade shot out. The best she could manage was a weak crimson fizzle. Her head dropped back onto the forest floor and she chuckled slowly, darkly. “You have surprised me. With everything we heard about the infamous Hazardous Nora in Tolstey, it made you sound like a super soldier—the Army’s pet dog. Who would have guessed you would come out here just for revenge?”
I didn’t say anything and Jialji raised her head to look at me. “You came from that little village back there that my family had just done a job in, right?”
“That’s right.” I saw no point in evading the question or lying.
“I’m surprised you would come out here by yourself, especially with that huge lizardman army approaching from the East. Don’t you care about the villagers?”
I blinked. “Lizardman army?”
Jialji painfully nodded. “I didn’t see it myself, Zast-Clasta did. She was our scout. I heard her warning a while ago. She wasn’t even with us when we put you down before. Zast-Clasta was never part of your...whatever this is. Your feud.” Her hand searched a pocket for something before she gave up, merely resting her blood-soaked hand on her chest. “My family had not even been in Tolstey for that long. Nobody was paying you for this, Nora, they couldn’t have been. I hope you’re proud.”
I shook my head. “You are mercenaries and murderers. You expect me to feel sorry for you? I wouldn’t have even known you were here if you hadn’t invaded a settlement in the middle of a monster attack just to murder some poor woman.”
When Jialji laughed, I blinked. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but laughter hadn’t been one of my top three guesses. She said, “For a street rat turned military officer, you are still incredibly naive. Not everyone in this world is like you, all stupid and direct, nor a fighter. That woman we killed was a serial child molester in Tolstey. She used all of her family’s resources to evade the law, then left town to escape any other repercussions. Some of the victims’ families in Tolstey pooled money together to hire my family to buy justice.”
“But—” I began.
Jialji laughed again. “Did you really think that a powerful, highly trained mercenary group would break into a village during a dangerous monster attack just to, what, kill a random goodwoman? Captain Hazard, people don’t join settlements in the dark end of nowhere unless they’re running from something, greedy, or idealistic. Furthermore, my family needs to eat too, and working as an adventurer has an even shorter life expectancy than mercenary work.” She looked away. “We really should have killed you. Now my Ven is dead, my family is gone...” Tears ran silently down her cheeks.
This scenario was not playing out how it had in my imagination. I didn’t feel good about what I was doing anymore, but I wasn’t a quitter, either. Some part of me still wanted justice too, and stubbornly clung to the memory of being helpless, speared through the gut in monster country.
I channeled Vibration power through the young tree in my hand, careful not to overdo it so I didn’t destroy the shoddy weapon. Jialji was wearing armor, but the crude wooden spear still went right through the woman’s body, pinning her to the ground.
She gasped, and I tried to pretend that my heart didn’t sink. I am no rotting hero, I thought. To be fair, I needed to leave the woman on the ground like she had done to me, but I felt heavy as I lifted off to fly away. The situation wasn’t sitting right with me. This was justice, but it still didn’t feel right. Part of me just wanted to get away. I didn’t want to hear anything more that Jialji had to say.
What she’d said about the settlement and lizardmen weighed heavily on my mind, and I almost immediately found myself flying back to where I’d left the Mo’hali woman. Smoke from the dying fires, thankfully petering out from thick undergrowth and drizzling rain had made it hard to find her.
When I landed next to Zast-Clasta, her glittering eyes were open, staring at me. She growled, “Come to finish the job, or are you going to torture me like you did my sister-wife?” She must have heard my discussion with Jialji through her communication device.
I blinked. This was all definitely not turning out like I’d imagined so many times over the years. I had a sinking suspicion I might actually be feeling worse, more unsettled about Jialji and her group than I had before. None of this made sense. They’d just tried to kill me. Why did I feel so guilty? “I came to see if you were still alive and ask about the lizardmen you saw.” My tone was even, professional.
“I am surprised you have not already started looting my family’s corpses.”
Indignation flared to life, breathing fire back into my heart. My eyes narrowed. “Answer the question. I don’t have time for this.”
“Of course you don’t. Where are your comrades? You left your duty to kill my family, Terran.” She showed me her rodent teeth. “Yes, I saw lizardm
en heading to that village, and the reason my family feared them, too. They had mages. Many of them.” She spit. “I have always been nothing, but what about you? You have much to lose. Now I hope you lose it all, that your dreams turn to dust. I curse you, Hazard woman.”
My stomach seemed to fold in on itself. Nearby, a couple quick flashes lit up the surrounding trees. I turned to see two small wooden boxes resting on the ground. I knew what they were. Apparently, so did the Mo’hali.
“That must be your reward for killing my sister-wife and my husband.” Her breathing grew faster, her words and tone more erratic. “I was starving when I met them. They took me in, gave me a home, a good life. Heather helped support an orphanage in Berber, Simple Hearts. She grew up there. Now she will never send money again. I hope you are proud, Terran. I hope your life gives the world more meaning than theirs did.” She glared murder at me. “Are you going to kill me now?”
I slowly, jerkily gathered the boxes. Then without another word, I floated up, leaving the accusing eyes of the angry Mo’hali woman. After I cleared the tops of the trees, I stared back the direction I’d come from, toward the settlement, and saw smoke rising into the sky—lots of it.
“Oh no.”
The House Always Wins
I stared at the boxes in my hands, the rumbling of the zebra-drawn carriage making the lids occasionally chatter. The seat I perched on was built into one side of the cabin. On the floor on the other side rested a coldcoffin, powered by a magic stone to keep a corpse preserved. A member of my team rested inside.
Grief was not new to me, but I’d thought I’d left guilt behind a while ago. I’d been wrong.
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